First They Came for Joe the Plumber…

Pajamas Media ^ | October 17, 2008 | Claudia Rosett

[Ooh-Ah]

Joe’s question about taxes threw a wrench into Barack Obama’s campaign pitch. So, oh what a background check Joe got. Within days, reports were all over the news that Joe owes back taxes, he doesn’t have an Ohio plumber’s license, his real name is Samuel, and he is — shock and horror — a registered Republican. Within days, Obama and Biden were holding up Joe to [1] public ridicule, and by implication mocking any American working stiff who might have the audacity [2] to want to earn more than $250,000 per year.

Obama may be full of talk about delivering the American dream, but he apparently has enormous disdain for Americans who actually sweat to earn it for themselves. He wants to take Joe’s money and spread it around in the name of helping others get ahead — but if anyone gets ahead more than Obama deems fitting, watch out.

 

It seems that Joe’s sins are less than [3] the litany would make them. He may not have a plumber’s license, but he works for someone who does. He owes back taxes, but less than $1,200. And at least to date, it is not a crime in America to use a nickname or be a registered Republican.

But to [4] squabble over Joe’s record is to miss the real point. Obama is the one running for public office, aspiring to the country’s highest position of power and public trust. Joe is not. He’s a private citizen, who had every right to ask a very good question. He wanted to know why he was being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream?”

What he got from the well-heeled Senators Obama and Biden was mockery and contempt.

Most disturbing is this: If that’s how Joe the Plumber gets dealt with while Obama is still stumping for votes, then what happens to Joe, or anyone else who dares question Obama’s plans, should Obama win the White House?

Should we expect that that the answer will be targeted investigations, a public display of whatever can be dug up in the way of private laundry, and sneers from the Oval Office?

In the interest of having an informed electorate , it would be far more valuable were the media teams working less frantically to dig up dirt on Joe, and a lot harder on filling in the gaps in the record of candidate Obama. Why won’t Obama release his Columbia transcripts? What exactly was he doing during those gaps in the bio?

How are we supposed to square the lavish praise of Obama’s intellectual powers and refined sensitivities with his professed failure during years of intimate acquaintance to notice the hate-speech of Rev. Wright? What is the real story with the ties to Bill Ayers, to Tony Rezko? What does that say about his judgment in choosing friends and advisers and associates?

Would Obama appoint similar pals to high office in Washington? Would he bring similarly blinkered perceptions to the job of making policy? Would his critics receive the kind of savaging just dished out to Joe? If there’s any chance that the answer is yes, then the drubbing of Joe the Plumber is a warning to us all.

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Article printed from The Rosett Report: http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/first-they-came-for-joe-the-plumber/

URLs in this post:
[1] public ridicule: http://washingtonindependent.com/13122/obama-revisits-joe-the-plumber-on-the-stump
[2] to want : http://campaignspot.na tionalreview.com/post/?q=MWM3M2M4MGJkOGY5MGFhZGU0ZGNkMGY3YzEyYTM1MzU=
[3] the litany : http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/17/feeling-plumber-fatigue-media-turns-joe/
[4] squabble over Joe’s record : http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/17/MNQ013J6JV.DTL

[Ooh-Ah]

Is this the treatment an Obama administration would use against critics?

[Boston Tea Party]

In a word, “Yes”.

[oblomov]

Some of these media outlets have opened themselves up to a defamation of character suit, I think, by there relentless drive to “investigate” Joe the Plumber. He is not a public figure.

[AuntB]

“Most disturbing is this: If that’s how Joe the Plumber gets dealt with while Obama is still stumping for votes, then what happens to Joe, or anyone else who dares question Obama’s plans, should Obama win the White House?”

Yup!

[oblomov]

“there” should be “their”

[johnny7]

Lighten up Joe... it's party time!

[Billg64]

“Joe” was on Fox today, he presented himself as an intelligent individual. He was asked if he was going to take the charity offered as people have sent money to a fund to pay his back taxes. He said no, I have strong arms, legs and back. American values that must be crushed by Obama and the MSM.

[Ann Archy]

Amen.

[Jeff Head]

http://www.jeffhead.com/joeplumber.htm

[SERKIT]

Joe is not the first. It seems detractors have problems with new conferences: Larry Sinclair in DC (arrested, extradited and incarcerated and release - all by AG Beau Biden - as Joe Biden’s VP candidacy was announced). And the author of “Obamanation” detained, then deported out of Kenya. Then we have Missouri law enforcement and prosecutors defining the “truth” in a presidential campaign and persecuting - or at least threatening - detractors of Barry. Filegate and vindictive IRS audits will look like tiddly winks if Barry and Amorosa Soetoro get into the White House.

[realcleanguy]

The Nazis started this way in the 1930’s

[Yorlik803]

You know it is bad when Joe the Plumber background gets looked into more closely the Obama’s.
That will teach the average person to question a left winger.

[sauropod]

Reign of His Slickness v2.0.

[VA Voter]

More Obama friends:

Bill the Bomber
Jeremiah the Inflamer
Rezco the Corrupter

Any others?

[Kay Syrah]

Aw heck, here's a little ditty I wrote for Joe

The Follies Brumaire

“Are you now or have you ever been a plumber’s friend?”

The gates of all the great estates
have fallen to the mildly overweight
who queue without social division
holding chits for a tour admission.

We sans-culottes may only peek
into homes financed by credit ease
for now without a bit of fuss
they sorta belong to all of us.

For failure is an exercised option
when law and finance make concoctions
at which the economy reels and strains
and the capital falls sans armed campaign.

So now the collective which is we
owns them all fee simple incomplete
and our residual property rights
do not extend to spending the night.

The empress's lobster and champagne
clog her pipes with much distain
for which she needs a plumber to unblock,
but it's after hours and the gates are locked.

There’s no need for bloody revolution
to implement the Jacobin solution.
To the Republic of Virtue we now must cleave,
where plumbers must plumb or be made to leave.

[Yorlik803]

The communists started in the 1900s with this kind of BS.
The left says they are the party of peace and inclusion, but the reality is that they are about as tolerant as the KKK.

[Anti-MSM]

Not only is this the treatment his critics can expect, but all the Bush critics that have said there is a chill wind in the air for their criticisms of Bush (when there was no such thing) will fully support this treatment (aided, endorsed, and actively pushed by the MSM).

[kjo]

The liberal media have shown themselves to be jackals. The part that shocks is the unanimity with which they have responded to some poor, schmuck, who had the gall to ask a question the media has declared off-limits. They have rolled him, opened his personal life for inspection, something they will not do with Obama, who is actually running for President. I think we need to begin asking an important question...why? Is the media SO ideological, or have they been paid off? Soros has been spreading money around...who is getting it?

[hosepipe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE5is3_1XWs