THE DAILY BLADE: MSM, Obama Campaign: Joe Don’t Know Jack
During their final debate at Long Island’s Hofstra University, John McCain reminded Barack Obama, “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.” Well, apparently the Obama campaign and its MSM minions decided that The One is running against “Joe The Plumber” (AKA Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, 34, a divorced father of a 13-year-old son who lives in Holland, OH).
Obama’s running mate Joe Biden immediately started attacking Wurzelbacher (video) in interviews and stump speeches, prompting this e-mail response to reporters from McCain spokesperson Ben Porritt:
“Joe the Senator continued his angry campaign today fresh from his performance attacking Joe the Plumber on national television last night.”
“While Barack Obama attacks small town Americans for 'clinging' to guns and religion, his running mate is busy attacking hardworking Americans who oppose the socialist tax policies of Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, sensing an emerging threat to the ascension of their chosen candidate, the MSM swung into action. The Toledo Blade wasted no time in delving into every conceivable public record and found out that Joe is not licensed to work as a plumber in OH, which means “he’s not a plumber”; that he did not complete the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters, and Service Mechanics apprenticeship program; that according to his divorce records he made $40K in 2006; and that he owes the state $1,183 in back taxes.
Joe is also being called a racist (for saying that Obama tap-danced around his tax questions “almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”) and a white supremacist (for having a shaved head and being white).
After noting that “the arc of Wurzelbacher’s breakneck trip through the news cycle - from private citizen to insta-celebrity to political target - offers a curious insight into the political media culture,” Politico criticized McCain for not vetting Joe before mentioning his concerns about Obama’s tax plan in the debate.
The very idea that an ordinary citizen who asks a liberal politician a hard-hitting question needs to be vetted – and that the MSM will eagerly take it upon itself to do the vetting (that is to say, ripping to shreds) - also offers insight into the political media culture.
McCain’s first comments on the smear campaign against Wurzelbacher took the form of barbed jokes at Thursday night’s nonpartisan Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in NYC, where he had them rolling in the aisles with bits like this:
Already, my friends, my opponents have been subjecting Joe to their vicious attack machine. His veracity has been questioned by Barack Obama's running mate Joe The Six Term Senator. He claims that this honest, hard-working small businessman could not possibly have enough income to face a tax increase under the Obama plan. What they don't know ... is that Joe the Plumber recently signed a very lucrative contract with a wealthy couple to handle all the work on all seven of their houses.
But in a speech (video) the next day, McCain was no longer laughing:
People are digging through [Joe’s] personal life and he has TV crews camped out in front of his house. He didn't ask for Senator Obama to come to his house. He wasn't recruited or prompted by our campaign. He just asked a question. And Americans ought to be able to ask Senator Obama tough questions without being smeared and targeted with political attacks.
He apologized to Wurzelbacher for subjecting him to the full-bore media assault.
Given how much dirt the MSM dug up on Wurzelbacher within 24 hours, one wishes the media had acted with similar alacrity to get to the bottom of Obama's dealings with Tony Rezko and just how close and long-standing his relationship is to "college professor" (the new MSM euphemism for "domestic terrorist") Bill Ayers.
But the ugly truth is, it’s not just Sarah Palin media elites hate, it’s Joe and other workaday Americans of his ilk who can neither afford tax shelters nor paying higher taxes so their hard-earned income is redistributed to other people as unearned income.
Joe the Plumber may yet turn out to be the game changer that has eluded McCain for so long – and not just because he has brought into sharp focus that “Senator Government” really is a tax-and-spend liberal who will use the tax code to impose a European-style socialistic government. Americans are also starting to notice that anyone could be in the Obama attack machine’s crosshairs. Even a plumber.
The Messiah has morphed into a vindictive tin god, with an army of MSM winged monkeys to do his bidding.
Editorial Note: The Knoxville News Sentinel found its own Joe the Plumber. Turns out, he’s not voting for Obama, either.
This is the problem with the position of those who would vote for Obama to teach the Republican party a lesson. Obama came up out of the Chicago Machine. What happens if the Machine metastacizes, if the Machine goes national. I use that term deliberately. Cancer metastacizes. And, you do not vote out cancer. Getting rid of cancer is a long and painful process.
I would also add two things. Obama has been awful quick with the lawyers, including the infamous "truth squads" of prosecutors and sheriffs in Missouri, a campaign that that state's governor described as akin to the Alien and Sedition Acts rather than the First Amendment. Second, in the case of Reverend Wright, Obama broke with him ONLY after Wright disrespected Obama himself. That, for Obama, was beyond the pale. Obama is not someone I want to give the FBI to, if you take my meaning.
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