New Dangers in Speaking Truth to Power

Imagine you are sitting at home minding your own business. There is a knock at the door, a presidential candidate is there, asking for your vote. In return for this privilege you ask him a question that reveals, to many in the country, a new perspective on his candidacy. For this you are subject to myriad of investigations,insults, your livelihood is threatened,and your dreams are belittled. This is the story of Joe Wurzelbacher, a regular citizen whose attentive questioning brought into question the nature of Senator Obama's tax plan.



No he doesn't yet make 250,000 dollars, he hopes too. No he doesn't have a plumbing license, he does residential work so he doesn't need one. Yes has a tax lien, but so does Obama's treasurer, a fact which has never been trumpeted with such vigor by the media as all of the little pecadillos of poor Mr.Wurzelbacher, an ordinary citizen whose only crime was to question Orthodox political thought. Here is a man who hopes to work hard, save, and achieve, slandered.

p.s. the idea that McCain's campaign needs to vet people who ask Obama tough but illuminating questions strikes me as a trifle absurd.

Also, Another American paying the price for his Heterodoxy.



Update, Quotes from the Plumber in Question:

"Hopefully they'll have me to thank for it as far as telling people to get out and find their own answers," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "That's where I hope they go with it."

"It actually upsets me," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "I am a plumber, and just a plumber, and here Barack Obama or John McCain, I mean these guys are going to deal with some serious issues coming up shortly. The media's worried about whether I paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America. They really don't. I asked a question. When you can't ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me."

Joe the Plumber: The Real Story

In the debate on Monday, McCain made Joe the Plumber from Ohio a centerpiece of his policy points, especially when he attacked Obama's tax and health care policies.  Overnight, Joe was transformed into a political celebrity.  However, it seems that (surprise!) McCain didn't really find out the whole deal with Joe.  Like Sarah Palin, Joe Wurzelbacher was not vetted by McCain's team, and now there are some nasty truths coming out.

It turns out, Joe's not such a perfect citizen.  He owes the state of Ohio $1,182.98 in personal income taxes, doesn't have a plumbing license, and he actually makes less than $250,000 a year - so he would most definitely be getting tax cuts under Obama's tax plan, contrary to what McCain repeatedly claimed in Wednesday's debate.

But McCain doesn't care, he's a maverick - who cares what skeletons are in the closets of his people?  Palin abused her power in Alaska, but whatever - she's his VP choice and nothing will stop that!  Joe will actually be benefitted by Obama's tax plan and not McCain's, but hey, McCain doesn't care!  Joe has become the poster boy of the McCain campaign, being used as a talking point in rallies, and is the focus of a new ad that McCain has released.

As the new poster boy, Joe needs to be defended from the Democrats at all costs.  When Obama's campaign and the media began calling attention to Joe's less-than-perfect record, the campaign went on the attack.  Tucker Bounds, the McCain-Palin campaign spokesman, said, "It's an outrage that the Obama campaign and the media are attacking Joe the Plumber for asking a legitimate question of a Presidential candidate.  Instead of answering tough questions, his campaign attacks average Americans for daring to look at the reality behind his words."

The question being to referred to was when Obama met Joe at a campaign stop, and Joe asked about his taxes, claiming he would make $250,000 a year as owner of a plumbing business.  Obama responded honestly, that those making $250,000 or less would not get tax raises - which would include Joe, if he was honest in his taxes.  

So to me, Bounds' defense of Joe in inexcusable.  Obama and the media are only completing the vetting process that McCain utterly failed to even begin.  I mean, they found Joe on the Drudge Report, and immediately made him a campaign focus!  Which makes me wonder, where did McCain find Palin - in an old beauty contest magazine?

All of this only highlights a side of McCain that worries me.  It seems to me that he can be impetuous, making a decision without fully examining any background information, and then sticking by it no matter what.  We saw this with Palin, when it was revealed by the bloggers and mainstream media that her daughter was pregnant, and then that she was involved in a power-abuse scandal in Alaska.  Then we saw that she knew nothing policy-wise, with her despicable interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.  Unbelievably, McCain still stuck by her, when others began calling for her to be dropped.  Kathleen Parker, a well-known conservative columnist with the National Review, wrote an article in which she called for Palin to be dropped, and then stuck by her article, defending it to Stephen Colbert on an episode of the Colbert Report.  But still, McCain has made a decision, and he DOES NOT BACK DOWN! That would be showing WEAKNESS!  And now, he's made a campaign hero out of a man that is in no way someone that he should be trumpeting.  Come on, McCain!  Show some humility, accept the fact that you made a stupid, rush decision, and drop Joe the plumber!  I doubt he would mind, anyway - he never signed up to be a political celebrity.  I would say drop Palin while you're at it, but it's way, way too late for that now.  You're stuck with her.  

Of course, if McCain had changed his mind after choosing Palin, or even Joe, well, that would be flip-flopping, right?  And it's dangerous for a politician to change his mind on an issue, as we found out in 2004.  A leader needs to make decisions and stick by them, NO MATTER WHAT!  Like Bush once said, "I'm the decider!"

Yeah, right.

Sources: Politico.com: McCain Discovers plumber no ordinary joe