For those unfamiliar with Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) before his provocative health care speech on the House floor last night, here’s a rundown of Grayson’s colorful commentary since he was sworn into Congress last year:

-- On a Netroots Nation panel, he joked that his Republican opponent, former congressman Ric Keller, "did all his hiring at Hooters."

-- At a fundraiser with Vice President Joe Biden last month, Grayson said that former VP Dick Cheney "liked to shoot old men in the face" and invited Biden to "go water boarding with him."

-- He called conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh a “has-been hypocrite loser” who “was more lucid when he was a drug addict.”

-- And before he was elected to Congress, his car sported a bumper sticker with the slogan "Bush Lied, People Died."

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Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) warned Americans that "Republicans want you to die quickly" during an after-hours House floor speech Tuesday night.

His remarks, which drew angry and immediate calls for an apology from Republicans, were highlighted by a sign reading "The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly."

Veteran Tennessee Republican Jimmy Duncan abandoned customary reticence to chastise Grayson.

"That is about the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor, and I, for one, don't appreciate it," Duncan said.

"It's fully appropriate that the gentleman return to the floor and apologize," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, another Tennessee Republican.

But none was forthcoming from Grayson — a freshman Democrat from a competitive district — who said the first part of the GOP approach to health care is: Don't get sick.

"If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly," he said.

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Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson's assertion on the House floor last night that the Republican health care plan amounts to a wish for sick people to "die quickly" has provoked a fierce response from national Republicans.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) immediately loaded Grayson's speech onto You Tube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPpQ2MNaSDo] in hopes of turning it into a viral sensation, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has already e-mailed out more than a half-dozen stories on the episode to its press list over the last 12 hours.

All of which, of course, reminds us of the national furor caused by now-famous Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) "You lie!" outburst during President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month.

There are two critical differences between Wilson and Grayson, however, from a political perspective.

First, Wilson has held his South Carolina since 2001 -- meaning that he has established some connection with the district's voters.

Grayson, on the other hand, was first elected last November thanks in large part to a Republican incumbent who found himself cross-wise with the party's base. Grayson has had little time to put down roots in the district and a comment like this one has the potential to complicate those efforts.

Second, Wilson's district went for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) with 54 percent of the vote in 2008 and four years earlier had been carried by President George W. Bush with 60 percent. Contrast that with Obama's narrow 52 percent win in Grayson's seat in 2008 and Bush's 55 percent in the district in 2004.

Seen through the political lens then, Grayson's comment -- if Republicans can push it into a national story over the next 24 to 48 hours -- is more potentially harmful to his chances of returning to Congress than was Wilson's "you lie" interjection...

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