'Joe the Plumber' in media cross hairs

[applebutter]

John Kass writes a column for the Chicago Tribune, a paper that endorsed That One today. Sounds like the sentiment may not have been unanimous.

 

 

'Joe the Plumber' in media cross hairs

John Kass

5:13 PM CDT, October 18, 2008

The eyes of Joe the Plumber stare sightlessly from the media pike that his head has been impaled upon. A few crows fly over. As crows are curious, they become interested in the offering below. They lock their wings, caw and begin their swoop.

 

Poor Joe. "I'm kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. Everybody wants to know about it," joked Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio, the celebrated Joe the Plumber of this presidential election.

 

The quote proves Joe Wurzelbacher is alive, and that it's not Joe's real flesh-and-blood head up there on the media's mocking pike. It's just his figurative head, not the head of a man, but of an American reduced to symbolism for political purposes. It's much easier to mount a bloodless two-dimensional cartoon head on a sharp point.

 

Yet even symbols have feelings, and it sure must have hurt. So, how did Joe lose his head?

 

 

It's simple. He made three big mistakes. Mistake No. 1 was that Joe got involved in presidential politics without a license. You must have a license to do anything in this country these days. Joe didn't know any better.

 

But it was mistake No. 2 that really got him. Wurzelbacher got Obama to tell him about his tax policy. The Democratic senator from Illinois confessed that if elected president, he'd institute a tax plan to "spread the wealth around."

 

Those four words just about finished Joe. Joe said he was a plumber and would like to buy a plumbing business but was worried about Obama's planned tax increases on small business owners earning more than $250,000.

 

"Do you believe in the American dream?" Joe asked Obama. "I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

 

Obama answered him patiently, calmly, saying his tax policy would not hurt most small businesses. But there was that unfortunate gaffe—not really reported as a gaffe since the media is generally weak-kneed for Barack, but a gaffe nevertheless—in which Obama said those four remarkable words:

 

"Spread the wealth around." Oblivious and witless, Joe the Plumber was like those ancient Egyptian contractors who finished the secret treasure vault in the pyramids and wondered why pharaoh wanted them to precede him in the afterlife.

 

"Spread the wealth around" is regular Joe speak for redistributionist tax policy, in which the government takes from the Joes and keeps a fee for handling Joe's money, then gives it out to other folks who want Joe's money, so the other folks will love the politicians who run the government and vote for them again and again.

 

This is a system that works remarkably well for politicians, government workers with fat pensions and others who get Joe's money. It doesn't work out for the Joes, but there aren't as many of them as there used to be. Increasingly, Joes are encouraged to get in the government soup line for what is called "their fair share."

 

Anybody from Illinois understands how this works. In Illinois, it is an art form. Illinois Republican politicians do it. Illinois Democratic politicians really, really do it. Soon, perhaps, the rest of the nation will understand our way of doing it.

 

But let's stick with Joe's tale of woe and his third big mistake. That mistake, the one that was unconscionable, was to allow his conversation with Obama to be recorded on news tape, after which Republican John McCain converted Joe the Plumber to a hieroglyphic, to thwack Obama in the recent debate.

 

The Joes were on the verge of getting agitated, and it was clear there was only one thing to do. I'm thinking of the last scene from the great film "Being There," about the gardener who was pushed into the White House because everyone loved his speaking style. I hope you'll allow me to amend it some:

 

"Gentlemen," one fellow says to the others. "If we are going to keep the presidency, we must destroy Joe the Plumber."

 

Off with Joe's head! "Joe the plumber's story has some cracks" said the Chicago Tribune. "Plumber's story springs a leak: Say it ain't so, Joe / He's not a licensed plumber, and he owes Ohio almost $1,200 in back taxes," said the Sun-Times.

 

"McCain may stumble with focus on 'Joe the Plumber' " said the Bloomberg.com headline. In newsrooms across the land, Joe's head thunked to the floor.

 

The tone of most of the stories was the tone of a stern teacher lecturing the class hooligan. According to this reasoning, even though he was working for a plumber and didn't need a license to do residential work, his lack of a license left him without credibility. And those back taxes also made him incredible.

 

Tax experts were consulted and said that even if Joe could afford to buy the plumbing business, he shouldn't worry about Obama's taxes. But I grew up in a small family business, and saw what my father went through to pay this tax and that tax and the other tax and then try to pay our bills, so listening to experts reassure small business owners that they shouldn't worry when Democrats may control all of Washington made me want to laugh my head off.

 

Joe wasn't the one who said he wanted to "spread the wealth around." But it's Joe's head up there, on that pike, as the crows come down.

 

[email protected]

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columni...0,946674.column

[hadtoregister]

From powerlineblog.com

 

Spread the wealth around

 

"Currently, Barack Obama is outspending John McCain on the airwaves by something like four to one. It seems likely that he will succeed in buying the Presidential election.

 

But wait! We know that Obama is in favor of "spreading the wealth around" so as to achieve what he thinks is fairness. So presumably Obama will be willing to share his vast resources with the McCain campaign so the playing field will be level for the last weeks of the campaign. That's only fair, right? What do you say, Barack? And if not, why not?

 

PAUL responds: Obama didn't break his promise to rely on public financing (if McCain did too) for nothing.

 

Shouldn't McCain emphasize, in the waning days of the campaign, that none of Obama's other many promises should be believed, in light of the fact that Obama broke this fundamental one? Of course, having kept his own promise, it's not clear that McCain has the resources necessary to get this, or any other, message out."

 

Seems "fair" to me.

 

[hadtoregister]

Again from powerlineblog.com forum I think says it all about Joe the plumber.

 

Wait, wait, wait. Let me just clarify this. Because it seems...surreal. According to liberals -

 

The point isn’t about what Sen. Obama said in response to a question posed by an American when Sen. Obama showed up in his neighborhood looking for votes.

 

The point isn’t what Sen. Obama’s reference to wealth redistribution revealed about Sen. Obama’s core beliefs.

 

The point isn’t how that answer given by a man running for the highest office in the land resonated with middle class Americans.

 

No, the most important thing, to liberals, is finding out all they can about the citizen asking the question and attempting to make him illegitimate and thus banish the question.

 

I’m stunned.

 

There is no interest shown by liberals in the people Sen. Obama chose to associate himself with - allied himself with - in the course of his political career. No interest in Ayers, Dohrn, Rezko, Wright, Pfleger, ACORN, Odinga, and on and on ad nauseam - but dig, dig, dig for stuff - true or not - on this guy. An American with a question. How dare he.

 

Tell me again why there is no reason to suspect the left of socialist/marxist tendencies. This is sick and twisted. Politics of personal destruction, indeed.

 

Joe asked a question. The whole thing got media attention because of how Sen. Obama answered the question. He didn’t force Sen. Obama to answer it the way he did. Sen. Obama answered it according to his own personal philosophy. Sen. Obama is running for President of the United States, and he presented himself to the public for questions. I keep hearing how Sen. Obama is the most brilliant, eloquent speaker ever. If this is true, surely the senator should be able to elucidate his own ideas.

 

[Guest bleeds]

Sen. Govt's campaign has gone out of its way to make Joe the Plumber look bad based merely on a comment made by the Senator. You think this is bad now, wait until we have a Democratic President and a Democratic supermajority in both houses of Congress.

 

Look at what has happened in Missouri where the Obama campaign has made it a criminal act to make a statement that is untrue about Sen. Govt. Who gets to decide what is true and what is not? That's right. The Obama campaign. Now, in Missouri, regardless of whether the comment is factual or not, if it is offensive to the Obama campaign, you can be charged with a crime and sentenced to jail time.

 

Can you say Big Brother?

[jayde]

think it's bad now? just wait until sen. govt becomes pres. govt. watch free speech become a thing of the past in the public forum as well as the private forums. with the reestablishment of the so-called "fairness doctrine", talk radio goes down the drain.

[Immortal13]

think it's bad now? just wait until sen. govt becomes pres. govt. watch free speech become a thing of the past in the public forum as well as the private forums. with the reestablishment of the so-called "fairness doctrine", talk radio goes down the drain.

 

So very true......see thread about Lufkin woman. Those Secret Service guys may be very busy.

 

[DaveTV1]

Sen. Govt's campaign has gone out of its way to make Joe the Plumber look bad based merely on a comment made by the Senator. You think this is bad now, wait until we have a Democratic President and a Democratic supermajority in both houses of Congress.

 

Look at what has happened in Missouri where the Obama campaign has made it a criminal act to make a statement that is untrue about Sen. Govt. Who gets to decide what is true and what is not? That's right. The Obama campaign. Now, in Missouri, regardless of whether the comment is factual or not, if it is offensive to the Obama campaign, you can be charged with a crime and sentenced to jail time.

 

Can you say Big Brother?

 

 

I've never been a big fan of the "Show Me" State. They wouldn't know what was shown to them, if it was presented right before their eyes.

[applebutter]

From Mark Steyn, an immigrant to the US, speaking the truth.

 

The heart of the American Dream is aspiration. That’s why people came here from all over the world. Back in eastern Europe, the Joe Bidens and Diane Sawyers of the day were telling Joe the Peasant: “Hey, look, man. You’re a peasant in the 19th century, just like your forebears were peasants in the 12th century and your descendants will be peasants in the 26th century. So you’re never gonna be earning 250 groats a year. Don’t worry about it. Leave it to us. We know better.” And Joe the Peasant eventually figured that one day he’d like to be able to afford the Premium Gruel with just a hint of arugula and got on the boat to Ellis Island. Because America is the land where a guy who doesn’t have a 250-grand business today might just have one in five or ten years’ time.

 

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTUzM...Tk3ZjhjYTdlZjI=

 

 

[applebutter]

Byron York talks to Tito Munoz, US Citizen, born in Columbia, about Joe the Plumber:

 

After McCain left, as the crowd filed out, Munoz made his way to an area near some loudspeakers. He attracted a few reporters when he started talking loudly, in heavily-accented English, about media mistreatment of Wurzelbacher. (It was clear that Spanish was Munoz’s native language, and he later told me he was born in Colombia.) When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree.

 

"Are you going to check my license, too?” he asked me. “Are you going to check my immigration status? I’m ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport — “

 

I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked.

 

“Yeah, I have my papers right here,” he said. “I’m an American citizen. Right here, right here.” With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose. “Right here,” he said. “In your face.”

 

Munoz said he owned a small construction business. “I have a license, if you guys want to check,” he said.

 

Someone asked why Munoz had come to the rally. “I support McCain, but I’ve come to face you guys because I’m disgusted with you guys,” he said. “Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber? Joe the Plumber has an idea. He has a future. He wants to be something else. Why is that wrong? Everything is possible in America. I made it. Joe the Plumber could make it even better than me….I was born in Colombia, but I was made in the U.S.A.”

 

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWRhZ...WMxMDQ1ZDRkYzI=

 

(a very good read)