Flashback: Rep. Wilson Also Had To Apologize After Attacking Strom Thurmond's Illegitimate Daughter

Last night, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) issued an apology -- "I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President's remarks" -- and called the White House after heckling Obama during his nationally televised health care speech.

That's the first time most Americans heard of Congressman Wilson, but it's not, it turns out, the first time Wilson's emotions got the best of him and he was forced to apologize.

Flashback to mid-December 2003, when Essie Mae Washington-Williams came forward with the bombshell that she was the illegitimate daughter of the recently-deceased patriarch of South Carolina politics, Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Rep. Wilson, a former page of Thurmond's, immediately told The State newspaper that he didn't believe Williams. He deemed the revelation "unseemly." And he added that even if she was telling the truth, she should have kept the inconvenient facts to herself:

"It's a smear on the image that has as a person of high integrity who has been so loyal to the people of South Carolina," Wilson said...


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http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/you-li...