"You lie!"

The reasons not to interrupt a presidential address on live television are self-evident, but many conservatives share Rep. Joe Wilson's concerns, if not his decorum. For conservative pundits, reactions tilt on the question of what is more important: Wilson's specific objection or the manner in which he stated it?

• Joe Wilson a Hero  Hot Air's AllahPundit defended Wilson. "We're supposed to be polite to Obama when he's not polite to us?" he asked, arguing Democrats do far worse. "For a full month: 'Angry mob,' 'political terrorists,' 'evil-mongers,' brown shirts.' NO APOLOGIES. And Joe Wilson's supposed to grovel?" Michelle Malkin accused Democrats of "manufactured outrage" against Wilson. "It was Obama who said himself in the speech: 'If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out,'" she wrote. "That's what Joe Wilson was doing, wasn’t it?" Dan Riehl said "I very much am Joe Wilson," writing, "it was refreshing to see someone with a passion for truth unthinkingly inject some into a hall all too lacking in it last night thanks to Obama."

• Joe Wilson an Idiot  John McCain called Wilson's behavior "totally disrespectful" and said there is "no place for it in that setting or any other and he should apologize immediately". National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez agreed. Commentary's John Podhoretz wrote, "There is no excuse for such conduct," and that Wilson should be censured. But Podhoretz conceded, "he is about to become a folk hero."
  

• Inappropriate, But So Was Liberal Reaction  "Joe Wilson should be censured," wrote Jonah Goldberg. "But Dems did boo and hiss -- in large numbers -- during Bush's SOTU. So less indignation please." Jon Henke wondered if Wilson had a point. "Agree that Wilson was rude, inappropriate," he wrote. "But didn't the CRS say leg 'does not contain any restrictions on non-citizens'?" Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb parodied Obama's much-lauded 2008 speech defending Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown Joe Wilson than I can disown the whole Republican community," he wrote. "He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years."

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