I’m Not That Joe Wilson

Normally, when an aspiring public officeholder who's just launched a Facebook page gets an early rush of followers, it's a great sign (just ask Barack Obama). Not so with Snohomish County Superior Court judicial candidate Joe Wilson. If that name sounds familiar, it's because another Joe Wilson has been in the news of late: the South Carolina Congressman/Michael Bloomberg doppelgänger who heckled the President during his health-care address last week.

Facebook enthusiasts confused Snohomish County’s Wilson with Obama-heckling South Carolina Congressman Wilson (inset).

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Meanwhile, SnoCo Joe Wilson's new Facebook followers confused him with the other Joe Wilson and flooded his page with angry comments. The campaign tried to pull down as many of the confused commentators' screeds as possible, but they had difficulty keeping up. Suffice it to say, this sort of name confusion does not stand to benefit local candidate Wilson in quite the same way it did Eddie Murphy's Thomas Jefferson Johnson in The Distinguished Gentleman, in which Murphy's character gets elected to Congress simply because he has the same name as a recently deceased incumbent. Hence, in an attempt to clear things up, Snohomish County's Wilson saw fit to send his Facebook fans an e-mail the morning after his Southern namesake's outburst. The note read, in part:

"Last night, a South Carolina congressman named Joe Wilson—from the same state that is working to pull Boeing out of Washington—yelled during President Obama's speech 'You lie!'...Since I share the same name, some who may not know the difference between Snohomish County and South Carolina have decided to direct their anger or support at me...Most of the comments have been taken down, but folks keep posting more quickly than we can respond. So, for what it's worth, I think the Congressman was inappropriate and was right to apologize. Some of my newfound 'fans' should probably direct their affections elsewhere for more appropriate reasons."