How is Joe Wilson's Outburst Playing Out?

On Wednesday night, shortly after the Obamacare speech was complete and the outrage from the left was just beginning over Rep. Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" outburst, I wrote this:

This will be the story of the speech. An hour of rhetoric was just eclipsed by two shouted words. A day or two from now those two words will be all anyone remembers from this speech.

Toby Harnden of the UK Telegraph has these thoughts:

So how will the Wilson saga play? Conventional wisdom is that it’s a big gift to Obama. And there’s lots of chortling on the Left about the $350,000+ that Wilson’s Democratic opponent received in donations.

I’m not so sure. The chances are that that’s money down the drain. Wilson won by eight points in 2008, likely to be a Democratic high-water year. And Wilson himself is likely to get a few dollars out of this. To many, he’s a Republican hero. If you’re one of those fans, get your “I’m with Joe Wilson” t-shirt here.

More importantly, the kerfuffle over Wilson’s outburst has stifled Obama’s post-speech message. And it has raised a new issue the Right can use to cast doubt on health-care reform.

I've heard that Wilson's opponent is deep in debt, and chances are the money he's raising will go down that hole rather than help him ramp up his campaign. In a year in which Democrats are likely to take a bath, there's little chance that this incident will be enough to swing that district over to the dark side.