Another profile in courage from the Republican side of the aisle, as reported by Amanda Terkel for the Huffington Post:
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) boasted on Facebook Wednesday that he was back in Washington and looking forward to voting in person on the House floor. He also mocked Democrats for being overly cautious during the pandemic.
A few hours later, Wilson, 73, announced he had tested positive for COVID-19. That Facebook post has since been deleted.
Wilson is infamous for breaking Congressional decorum and baselessly shouting “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s speech to a Joint session of Congress in September, 2009.
Only hours before his diagnosis, Wilson, in a remarkable example of bad timing, attacked Democrats on his official Facebook page for purportedly failing in their “Constitutional duty” by attending and voting remotely, which is now permitted by House rules in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In his now-deleted post, Wilson brags about co-sponsoring a bill that would have denied members of Congress their day’s pay if they chose to vote by proxy, i.e., remotely, on on any any given date.
That asinine piece of GOP legislation (which thankfully has no chance of becoming law) was introduced in May of this year, during that halcyon time when House Republicans could still pretend that the COVID-19 pandemic was all a hoax being exploited by the Democrats.
Since that bill was introduced, however, 48 lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been diagnosed with the SARS-Cov-2 virus— including 26 GOP House members (as opposed to 11 Democrats). In the Senate, that ratio is even more pronounced (Nine Republican senators vs. 2 Democratic).
The fact that this type of “mocking” legislation promotes and encourages disinformation about the pandemic to the constituents of those legislators callow enough to sponsor or promote it seems to be of no concern to them.
Wilson’s spokesperson provided a spectacularly unconvincing explanation for the deletion:
“This was posted before Rep. Wilson knew he was positive for COVID-19,” said Wilson spokesperson McLaurine Pinover. “The test was a precautionary measure so he had no reason to believe he was positive at the time. The photo was deleted to avoid confusion.
Actually the post was deleted to prevent Wilson from looking like more of a fool than he already does.
Wilson, 73, will spend the Christmas holiday quarantining.