I Am Joe
OK, not me. Iowahawk is Joe, and he wants you to be, too. He wants me to be, as well, but that boat probably left the station a long time ago, even if I put in plenty of blue-collar time, went to a state university, work for a right-wing tabloid and like nothing better than watching baseball and throwing one back and forth with my kid in the backyard. The only reason I’m not some kind of intellectual elite is basically because I’m too lazy, contrary and clueless, hence the abovementioned work-education history. My consternated blue collar fisherman/firefighter/cop brothers-in-law pegged it, when they inquired of my wife if I had a middle name, and what it was, and she told them it’s “Geoffrey,” and they perked up said, “Hey, can we call him ‘J.J.?’” … because as my buddy Sgt. Jake put it, “‘Jules’ is, no offense, kind of queer,” and my actual name, “Julian,” is no improvement on that … but my wife had to tell her brothers, “Uh … It’s spelled with a ‘G’” and they said, “Geez, even that’s weird.” Because only by a complicated accident of birth am I even American at all and not Australian or British, and then there’s the being raised in various parts of post-colonial Southeast Asia thing. I may be about as unJoe as it gets. But this isn’t about me, it’s about Joe. And it isn’t even about Joe. It’s about America and a fundamental American Joeness. As Iowahawk, pissed off and not being funny at all maybe for the first time in his blogging career, put it: What’s with the massive investigations and attacks on some plumber in Ohio who just exercised his right as a voter, asked a couple of question and said, with simple piercing insight, That sounds like socialism, dude.
So count me in.
They already sucked, but when they went after Joe, they sucked the Big One. Joe persecution update follows:
Boston Globe, because it’s more fun to hear it from Eastern elites:
John McCain uses the ubiquitous Joe the plumber to all but accuse Democratic rival Barack Obama of being a socialist.
No, I think he actually, not all but, did.
McCain presses his attack: “At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut it’s just another government giveaway.”
Globe attempts some lame ”yeah but” that ignores Obama’s relentless anti-corporate, socialist, inescapably tax-and-spend rhetoric and policies.
AP analysis, or as we say in the business, “anal” (generally with short first “a,” emphasis on the second, though not always):
NEW YORK (AP) — The misadventures of Joe the Plumber were just the latest stumble for Republican John McCain as he veers from one idea to another in a thus-far elusive quest to slow Barack Obama’s momentum.
Joe Wurzelbacher was supposed to be the Republican presidential candidate’s ace in the hole — an average, working-class Joe whose dreams of something better might be thwarted by Obama’s plans. The Ohio plumber challenged Obama’s tax policies and got the Democratic presidential nominee to say he wanted to “spread the wealth around.” McCain told Wurzelbacher’s story at the final debate Wednesday in a bid to paint Obama as a tax-raiser out of touch with regular Americans.
But Wurzelbacher’s story didn’t quite hold up under inspection: He isn’t licensed as a plumber in an Ohio county that requires one. He owes $1,200 in unpaid taxes. The dream purchase of the plumbing company where he works is a long way off no matter who wins the election. McCain acknowledged Thursday he hadn’t ever spoken to the man he’d suddenly made a central figure in his quest for the presidency; McCain didn’t speak with Wurzelbacher until Friday.
Someone tell the AP that a statistical dead heat, after eight years of a famously unpopular presidency, amid war and economic turmoil, falls somewhat short of momentum. Someone also please tell the AP to keep it up. Attacking a struggling blue collar guy who is just getting by but still hates socialism won’t kill him or what he stands for. It will just make him stronger. AP’s got some gall, by the way, mocking the McCain camp’s “sense of grievance” against the national media and even mentioning McCain’s slams on the media’s failure to examine Obama’s ACORN and Ayers ties with any kind of seriousness. Analyze that, AP.
Now they’re investigating the “I am Joe” crowd. CBS:
The Republican National Committee is sending around this Associated Press photo of overall-clad McCain supporters standing outside an Obama rally, clutching plungers and a sign proclaiming “I Am Joe The Plumber”:
The only problem? At least two of the members aren’t quite as similar to the newly famous Joe Wurzelbacher as they might like you to think. As CBS News’ Maria Gavrilovic, who is traveling with the Obama campaign, reports, the man on the right does say he’s an actual plumber – though he is from Melbourne, Australia, and will thus not be casting a vote this November.
And the man on the left, plunger thrust high in the air, is Charlie Smith – the National Chairman of the College Republicans.
Yeah, well maybe it isn’t that they actually are Joe, but that they’re expressing an affinity with Joeness, you morons. Hard to grasp, I know, after all the energy that’s been put into explaining how sitting on boards with people, kicking off campaigns in their living rooms, sitting in their pews for 20 years, doesn’t make you an America-hating, ex-terrorist-palsing bigot or give you any affinity for them.
This NYT story, “McCain Says Obama Turned Heat on Joe The Plumber” curiously doesn’t examine that claim. Maybe because any serious examination would have to acknowledge it wasn’t so much Obama or the Obama camp, but the Obama camp followers who turned on the heat.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:09 am Comments (9) on Saturday, October 18, 2008
9 Responses to “I Am Joe”
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October 18th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I have never, in my entire life, put a bumper sticker on my car, or any other kind of statement sticker for that matter. Not for politics or anything else. But I am so tempted, soooo tempted to put that I AM JOE graphic on my car’s bumper…
October 18th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I may be about as unJoe as it gets.
You misunderstand Joeness, Jules. Joeness applies to Cho as well as Joe. It also applies to Juan, Hans, Obegwe, Rajan, and even to Sue, Lucy, and Rebecca. Joeness means hard work, taking pride in your achievements, helping out when you can, and depending on yourself to get through tough times as long as you can, and it doesn’t even matter what “class” you find yourself in.
That’s what the left doesn’t seem to get anymore. The very fact that they’ve given us this hard-left socialist cardboard cutout (in so far as he believes in anything at all) for a Democratic presidential candidate is an insult to anybody who thinks of him or herself as a “Joe”.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
What if it turns out the guy’s name is not Joe The Plumber, but John Galt?
October 18th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I wanted to make sure I’d get my name on that list.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Don’t do it, Bolger; they’ll slash your tires. It’s class warfare out there, Obama’s people having none.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Larry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt_(novelist) ??
Cheers
October 19th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Jules:
Good to have you back.
The emoticons have suicidal tendencies that are out of control. They really enjoy hurting themselves, and they do it in the name of political purity.
Dare not question ‘The One’!
I wonder if Joe will be the first customer at the new ‘re-education’ camps that ‘The One’ will establish in January.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Apropos my previous comment, “they’ll slash your tires”:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3QqO8EXd-II/SPsRpxDBETI/AAAAAAAAhHY/buYRKd5MCy4/s1600-h/attachment.jpg
October 20th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I Am Joe.
Seems more people than ever are wondering where is John Galt. Even letter writers to the Wall Street Journal.
The account of the Oct. 13 meeting between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and top bank executives (”At Moment of Truth, U.S. Forced Big Bankers to Blink,” page one, Oct. 15) reads like a scene out of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” It was all there: the forced participation in a “voluntary” program, the thinly veiled threats for uncooperative behavior, and the sacrifice of the stronger banks to the weaker ones, all in the name of “the collective good.”
Worse yet, all the CEOs went along with the plan, revealing just how beholden our financial system is to the muscle of the federal government. Not one of them voiced any public disapproval. Where are the titans of business who will stand up for individual rights? Where are the defenders of capitalism? Where is John Galt?
Ryan Krause
Bloomington, Ind.
Here is the link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122446079402948591.html