Hilarious.
I knew as soon it became clear that “Joe the Plumber” was a McCain supporter, the character assassination would begin.
I didn’t expect to see it here first though.

What, exactly, is ‘assassination’ about pointing out just about every personal fact he gave that gave context to his question was false?
If he asked about Iraq and someone digs into his profession, that might be one thing.
But he claimed to be an undecided voter, and it turns out he is a registered Republican who voted in the primary. He claimed to be a plumber, doesn’t even have a license. He doesn’t make 250k, which was the actual basis for the whole question, and heck, his first name isn’t even JOE. (As if the connection to ‘Joe Sixpack’ wasn’t the basis for that?)
It all relates directly to the very question he was asking, and the answers that he got. I find it pretty relevant, actually.

Karen is right. If you’re going to present an absurd premise–I will make exactly $250,000 a year, the very number above which you’ll tax as a plumber and business owner–the premise is certainly subject to challenge. That he’s not a plumber is fine. He can become one. But that he already voted Republican in the recent primary, owes back taxes (and thus has an un-disclosed chip on his shoulder), and doesn’t understand the difference between gross pay and net pay and how they would be taxed tells you something about where he’s coming from. Frankly, if you’re netting over $250,000 a year (after 401k deductions), you better be working 80 hours a week. Even if you were, you’d be making an hourly rate of over $62 an hour net. Are you really worth more than that? Really? REALLY? You can pay a little bit more for the benefit of living in a country that provides you such livelihood. As Oliver Wendel Holmes says “I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

So this “love they neighbour” blog does it again. Day after day after day we are subjected to bile about character assinations on poor old Messiah Obama, the humble carpenter, sorry lawyer, from Nazareth, sorry Hawaii.
Now a regular person has the temerity to ask the messiah a tough question (he is probably equated by this blog with smart a** lawyers who asked Jesus who is my neighbour), the messiah flunks the answer (showing he is not as clever as you think) and now this guy is just a fraud, not even a plumber, regular right wing christian focus on the family scum bag.
You people really do take the biscuit – ever heard of practice what you preach?? didnt think so – hypocrites

rx, who are you to tell people what they should be allowed to make? How about you not concern yourself with Joe the Plumber’s business (both literal and metaphorical). This is the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats. You have more faith in the government of the United States to spend other people’s money than you do in the people of the United States to spend their own money.

So I come home from work today and see that Obama has now sunk so low that he now ridicules an ordinary American. A guy who had the audacity to ask him a question. He was unprompted ordinary Joe who just asked a question. How awful it is for the Obama campaign to tear apart this man`s character.
Its one thing to spend more money than any other candidate on negative campaign ads against McCain. Its another thing to go negative against a voter who asked you a question on the street. Quite dispicable by Obama and this blog – shame on you both. frank is right you are hypocrites.
The thing is Joe might just turn this election towards McCain!

First, he answered the question.
Secondly, he answered the question several days ago.
The questions about ‘Joe the Plumber’ didn’t come due to Obama and his campaign, who apparently just carried on, and didn’t do a thing to or about Joe.
It came because of MCCAIN, who literally invoked the name of ‘Joe the Plumber’ several times (double digits, actually) in the debate, and THAT is when Joe reached the attention of the media.
Which he apparently didn’t mind, given he was giving interviews.
Sorry, this isn’t ‘average Joe who just asked one question during a rally’. This is a man who misrepresented himself, whose father is a major Republican contributor, who was giving interviews with Katie Couric.
And, once again, this has nothing to do with ‘what you are allowed to make’.
It has to do with the fact that he made a series of claims that proved to be false. Claims that related directly to the question he was asking.

If McCain made him a household name and coined the phrase Joe the Plumber then attack McCain for doing that. Say something like John McCain is really deflecting attention when he talks of Joe the plumber. This guy is NOT running for office, this guy is NOT part of the McCain campaign, this guy DID NOT go to Obama’s rally to heckle him, Obama was in his street!
Whatever his political leanings he is still just an ordinary voter. McCain is fair game, Obama is fair game, they are running for office. To attack an ordinary guy, asking an ordinary question is just sad. this blog rails against McCain for personal attacks, yet they stoop to the lowest point yet in this campaign, attacking an ordinary citizen for asking a question.
People running for political office know what they are getting into – by all means attack John McCain for bringing this guy into the election – thats fair game. But attacking the guyt himself is just the politics of the gutter. You know people have a right to say Obama is wrong and they do not agree with him. I know that is hard to take for those who are part of the cult of Obama – but thats the political process!

They aren’t ‘attacking’. They are informing.
Joe said he was a plumber. He doesn’t have a plumbing license.
He said he was undecided. He is a registered Republican, voted in their primary, was featured on Conservative radio interviewing with their pundits, and his family has contributed to the party for more than one generation.
Are you saying you have to be running to have your claims looked into and addressed?
If so, I expect to hear all comments cease about ANYONE who isn’t on a ticket or an employee (not contributor, he is, not a member of the party, Joe is, not politically active.. Joe is) of a political party.
I won’t hold my breath.

So let me inform you – Obama launched his political life in the home of a terrorist – so why is that deemed a negative attacke by people like you on this blog????
One person’s “information” is another persons attack. Joe the plumber owns or is trying to buy a plumbing business – that doesn’t mean he needs to be a plumber.
He was not on talk radio before he spoke to Obama ON HIS OWN STREET!! Obama went to his street, went on a walk-a-bout, invited questions. He got a question that he fluffed. It wasn’t the ordinary voters fault!
John McCain is fair game, attack him for using Joe the plumber out of whatever political motive he has, belittle McCain, put McCain down. Its all fair game. Its just sad that we cannot “inform” about Obama – thats a nasty attack on the Messiah, but you thinks its fair game to attack an ordinary voter, unprompted, getting involved in the political process. McCain may have exploited it, attack him, don’t attack the guy. That’s the point. You just can’t get over the fact that an ordinary person has shown the messiah up for what he is – a saocialist!

According to you, no non-candidate should have their lives, the basis for their claims, or their agenda examined by anyone.
What makes Ayers, or Wright any less ‘a voter’ than anyone else?
They aren’t running. They didn’t CHOOSE to have their lives looked into. Why are they not ‘ordinary voters’?
What, other than being a candidate, or a direct employee of the parties, makes someone no longer an ‘ordinary voter’ and their lives and investigating their claims becomes alright?
Remembering that, once again, ‘Joe the Plumber’ is a party member, a primary voter, and gave several interviews.

And, once again, Obama did NONE of this. Nor did Obama’s campaign.
Joe didn’t become part of the media frenzy until McCain made him part of it.
If you want to yell at someone for bringing Joe into the limelight.. well, ok, Joe sort of chose to be in the limelight by GIVING INTERVIEWS, including personal history, and political views.
Once again, at what point is it obvious that the person, themselves, are not avoiding public notice? You can’t get the good, and not get the bad.
And nobody, unless they are raised in a cave, is unaware that negative attention comes with the territory.

Karen your last two posts have just made my point! like all good liberals you don’t actually see the hypocrisy of what you have said!
Anyway……we shall see what effect attacking an ordinary voter who asked a question has on the Obama campaign. I don’t think it will turn the tide, but…..maybe…..just maybe…..it might let the American people see what an arrogant person Obama really is…..maybe…just maybe. We shall see

Well, point out hypocrisy.
Remembering that the definition of ‘hypocrisy’ isn’t ‘doing something that someone else disapproves of’. It is to say one thing, and do another.
Or to hold two people in the same category to different standards.
Which sounds more like the group who jumps to the defense of a man who put himself in front of a camera, with a mike at a highly publicized political rally, giving specific (and erroneous) personal details, and then made the interview circuit, and claim that it is horrible, how the media is paying attention to him because, after all, he isn’t running for office..
When they have supported even an INCREASED amount of media attention on people who are still private citizens, who have NOT placed themselves in front of interview cameras and made the details of their lives political statement.
You didn’t answer the question, in other words.
Why is ‘Joe the Plumber’ (who is actually, ‘Sam the Contractor’) just an ‘ordinary voter’ and telling the truth about his life an ‘attack’, and doing the same thing to Ayers, or Wright not, given that none of the above is running?
Secondly, as noted, what the heck does ANY of this have to do with Obama, and his purported ‘arrogance’, given that OBAMA, nor his representatives, nor his campaign, has done ANYTHING with Joe (or Sam) other than to answer his question at that rally?

And dealing with the ‘attack’..
As long as all the information they gave was true (and I haven’t heard anyone state it isn’t, it is ALL public record), how is telling the truth an ‘attack’ of a person?
If I say that my name is Joan, and you point out that it is Karen, is that an attack? If I say I am 23, and you note that you know I’m 43, is that an attack, if both are true?

Sorry, it isn’t saying one thing and doing another. That’s just lying.
It is to do a thing that you claim to disapprove of and complain about others doing.
If I were famous for my fight against casinos, talking about the evils of gambling, and it comes out that I play video poker on a regular basis when I think people aren’t looking.
Now, since I didn’t make any claims about what the information was, since I wasn’t the one talking about the right of media privacy of anyone not running for office, I fail to see any hypocrisy.
In the modern era of youtube, google, the Patriot Act, Reality TV, and a 24 hour news cycle, anyone who grabs a mike and makes a claim and expects that nobody is going to look into it is ridiculously naive.

This guy has got under your skin!
1. It was not a “highly publicised rally” it only became of media interest because of what Obama said. he was doing a walk-a-bout at the time – the media never cover these events unless the candidates says something that is off message – which Obama did
2. Obama hasn’t said anything about Joe – really? Biden talked about hi on Good Morning America ridiculing the guy and Obama mentioned him in a campaign speech yesterday with ridicule as well. It turns out the public have sided with Joe so Obama/Biden have stopped mentioning it leaving it to their surrogates – check youtube Karen!
3. Ayers is no “ordinary citizen” he has a public profile. he works on publically funded bodies distributing government money and is intimately involved in Democratice politics. Wright – well there maybe a case of ordinary citizen regarding him – but you will notice that John McCain, a man of honour has not mentioned Wright.
4. Hypocrisy is what you indeed say it is. But your posts have been angry towards Joe. An ordinary plumber or contractor whatever you want him to be. You have been nasty. Yet the Democrats cry foul when Republicans go after legitimate targets like Ayers or even cry fould when they go after Obama himself!
read Charles Krauthammer in todays Washinto Post – he sums it up best he says:
“Let me get this straight. A couple of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association — with total strangers, mind you — but worse: guilty according to The New York Times of “race-baiting and xenophobia.”
But should you bring up Barack Obama’s real associations — 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations and distributing money with William Ayers, citing the raving Michael Pfleger as one who helps him keep his moral compass (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2004) and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN — you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover, it is tinged with racism.
The fact that, when John McCain actually heard one of those nasty things said about Obama, he incurred the boos of his own crowd by insisting that Obama is “a decent person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president” makes no difference. It surely did not stop John Lewis from comparing McCain to George Wallace
The search for McCain’s racial offenses is untiring and often unhinged. Remember McCain’s Berlin/celebrity ad that showed a shot of Paris Hilton? An appalling attempt to exploit white hostility at the idea of black men “becoming sexually involved with white women,” fulminated New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. He took to TV to denounce McCain’s exhumation of that most vile prejudice, pointing out McCain’s gratuitous insertion in the ad of “two phallic symbols,” the Washington Monument and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Except that Herbert was entirely delusional. There was no Washington Monument. There was no Leaning Tower. Just photographs seen in every newspaper in the world of Barack Obama’s Berlin rally in the setting he himself had chosen, Berlin’s Victory Column.
Herbert is not the only fevered one. On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek fell over themselves agreeing that the “political salience” of the Republican attack on ACORN is, yes, its unstated appeal to racial prejudice.
This about an organization that is being accused of voter registration fraud in about a dozen states. In Nevada, the investigating secretary of state is a Democrat. Is he playing the race card too?
What makes the charges against McCain especially revolting is that he has been scrupulous in eschewing the race card. He has gone far beyond what is right and necessary, refusing even to make an issue of Obama’s deep, self-declared connection with the race-baiting Jeremiah Wright.
In the name of racial rectitude, McCain has denied himself the use of that perfectly legitimate issue. It is simply Orwellian for him to be now so widely vilified as a stoker of racism. What makes it doubly Orwellian is that these charges are being made on behalf of the one presidential candidate who has repeatedly, and indeed quite brilliantly, deployed the race card.
How brilliantly? The reason Bill Clinton is sulking in his tent is because he feels that Obama surrogates succeeded in painting him as a racist. Clinton has many sins, but from his student days to his post-presidency, his commitment and sincerity in advancing the cause of African-Americans have been undeniable. If the man Toni Morrison called the first black president can be turned into a closet racist, then anyone can.
And Obama has shown no hesitation in doing so to McCain. Just weeks ago, in Springfield, Mo., and elsewhere, he warned darkly that George Bush and John McCain were going to try to frighten you by saying that, among other scary things, Obama has “a funny name” and “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.”
McCain has never said that, nor anything like that. When asked at the time to produce one instance of McCain deploying race, the Obama campaign could not. Yet here was Obama firing a pre-emptive charge of racism against a man who had not indulged in it. An extraordinary rhetorical feat, and a dishonorable one.
What makes this all the more dismaying is that it comes from Barack Obama, who has consistently presented himself as a healer, a man of a new generation above and beyond race, the man who would turn the page on the guilt-tripping grievance politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
I once believed him.”
Sums it all up I think. This blog, the media, the Obamaites, and you Karen are all guilty of this hypocrisy. You brood of vipers! I think I’ll start a web site – lets call it http://www.matthew3.org – you see if you give something a biblical title it makes it gospel truth with you lot on here

I’m saying that Obama said nothing about Joe BEFORE the debate, when McCain mentioned him 26 times.
Of course he’s mentioning him now. But you can hardly credit that with making Joe’s life public. Oddly enough, based on his latest interview, your objections seem kind of odd, given that Joe (or Sam, to be more accurate) doesn’t mind it at all.
Never mind that Ohio Joe’s real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher. Joe “the plumber” Griesbach says any publicity for the little guy is good.
http://cbs3.com/topstories/Joe.The.Plumber.2.843105.html
Which, I think, should end all this angst over all those horrible things that the poor guy has been put through.

I’m so tired of hearing EVERYWHERE that “Joe the Plumber’s” real name is Samuel, as if there has been some kind of lie that has been uncovered. Aha! His real name isn’t even Joe…it’s SAMUEL (dun dun dun). Joe’s his middle name people. Not a big deal.

Not really, except that he doesn’t go by ‘Joe’, he goes by ‘Sam’. ‘Joe the Plumber’ is the name of the business he works for. Kind of like, you know, an ad.
Though that was really minor compared to the other things like.. not making anywhere near 250k, not even being in the running for opening his own business, being a registered Republican, not having a plumbing license, etc.
Probably why, as noted above, Joe didn’t really mind the press. So those who want to talk about his destroyed life, or the horrors of his invaded privacy, well.. he seems to actually think its a good thing.