Should Joe Wilson apologize again, or should we move on?

Look for Democratic leaders to introduce a formal resolution sometime this week to admonish SC GOP Congressman Joe Wilson if he doesn't make a formal apology on the House floor for his outburst during President Obama's joint address to Congress last week. House Democratic aides said that Wilson was given an opportunity to apologize on the floor on Thursday, but declined to. Wilson says he will not apologize again.
Obama was on "60 Minutes" last night. Correspondent Steve Kroft asked him about the Wilson outburst:

KROFT: Were you surprised?
OBAMA: Well, Congressman Wilson, shouting out during my joint sessions speech was a surprise not just to me, but I think to a lot of his Republican colleagues. You know, said that it wasn't appropriate. He apologized afterwards, which I appreciated. I've said so.
Truth of the matter is that there has been I think a coarsening of our political dialogue. That I've been running against since I got into politics.
KROFT: Do you think that Congressman Wilson should be rebuked? There was talk about that today, and now he's claiming that he is a victim. That he's being attacked.
OBAMA: (laughs) But see, this is part of what happens. I mean, it becomes a big circus instead of us focusing on health care.

Is Obama right? I think he's absolutely right. In fact, there's a bit of a trap in this portion of the transcript that you can be almost dead certain will catch the eye of people who will let
themselves be distracted.
It's a bit of a dilemma for me because, on the one hand, if I point it out in the transcript, you might be tempted to avoid it because you don't want to look like you're part of the problem, do you?
If I don't point it out, you'll be tempted to jump all over it, become outraged and, as Obama euphemistically put it, join the "big circus." Then again, people hell bent on being distracted by sideshows are more inclined to be distracted no matter what you say, but I'll lay back and see if anyone picks up on what I'm talking about in the transcript.
That said, back to "60 Minutes" where, in continuing his answer, Obama also makes a point about media:

I will also say that in the era of 24-hour cable news cycles that the loudest, shrillest voices get the most attention. And so, one of the things I'm trying to figure out is, how can we make sure that civility is interesting. And, you know, hopefully, I will be a good model for the fact that, you know, you don't have to yell and holler to make your point, and to be passionate about your position.

As a person who works in media, I can tell you that he's exactly right about cable news, and about news in general. News coverage has to serve two masters: It has to inform and, in this day and age, it has to make money. It's funny we should be talking about "60 Minutes" here when many, including its creator and long-time producer Don Hewitt (who died last month), felt that "60 Minutes" was the equivalent to opening a Pandora's Box: It was the first legitimate news program to make a profit. Before that, in the days of Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley, news was always an accepted "loss leader," but it was always a very matter-of-fact, even bland effort to deliver news and just news. Commentary was called commentary, such as Eric Severeid at the end of Cronkite's newscasts.
If "60 Minutes" was the Pandora's Box that created the tantalizing prospect of news as profit, several other things escaped that all have had a major impact on not just what but the way news is presented on television, especially cable news. What got let out?
1) Cable news, obviously, which was more of a curiosity in 1983 and had a relatively staid delivery. The pace has changed with the internet boom to where the news cycle is no longer 24 hours but really more like three cycles, morning drive, noon and afternoon drive. It's changed the pace but it's also gone from depth and understand to a focus on shrieking headlines
2) Tabloid talk television. It began with shows like "Hard Copy" and "A Current Affair" (hosted by Bill O'Reilly) --"Tsk Tsk TV" heavy on the sensationalism. We used to joke about how the stories would always show the same three seconds of footage over and over and over again. Usually it was a mundane clip like some accused rapist-murderer seen having drinks at some bar, or footage of O-J Simpson trying to fit that glove on his hand, shown over and over and over again, with breathless cutaways in between to photos of his slain wife, police tape outside the Simpson home. And so on. Add to this the hour-long afternoon talk shows that were more and more outlandish. Oprah wheeling out a toy wagon with several pounds of animal fat to dramatize how much weight she lost; Phil Donahue wearing a kilt, Geraldo getting his nose broken during a chair-throwing melee, and of course, Jerry Springer, who never seemed to run out of trailer trash people willing to be guests on his show. It was a long way from William F Buckley's "Firing Line."
3) The WWF. Don't laugh, but the WWF, now the WWE, its showmanship, the confrontations and drama --I see its influence. Add the NFL sports graphics that Fox incorporated into their cable news product and now you're delivering the kind of eye candy that cable news has since become. All those bells and whistles gives old school types the impression that their watching the "circus," not an informational program. And it is a circus (or a show, if you prefer a tamer term), as Fox News has proven with innovations everyone else copied.