RE: My congressman, Rep. Joe Wilson

As a native South Carolinian, I'm afraid I have to acknowledge that we've got a history of this kind of thing.

In 1856, one of Wilson's predecessors in the House, Rep. Preston Brooks of Edgefield, S.C., thrashed Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane in the halls of the U.S. Senate, leaving Sen. Sumner permanently disabled.

Rep. Brooks, Wikipedia records, “survived an expulsion vote in the House but resigned his seat, claiming both that he 'meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States' by attacking Sumner and that he did not intend to kill him, for he would have used a different weapon if he had. His constituents thought of him as a hero and returned him to Congress.”

In other words, Wilson's political career may be in better shape than it appears.

Somehow, Wilson's hometown, Charleston, S.C., generally manages to win the coveted (well, down here, anyway) “Most Mannerly” award year after year, though it ran second to Savannah this time around.

For my part, I think he should be deported to Georgia.