tas, you’ve a solid point. I’ve always intended discussion which constitutes a search for truth. It’s not my intention to intrude where I am unwelcome.

And this is why I don’t ever participate in the comments to my posts.

What the heck, condensed version:

Daily Kos incited crazies to vandalize Joe’s house.

Beyond Kos, the issue is not so much beating up a little guy as it is contrasting 1) media treatment of Joe, with 2) media treatment of Barack and friends.

the “Joe the Plumber” phenomenon is slightly about Joe as a symbol, and largely about Barack’s words: “spread the wealth”.

add final paragraph

I have a low attention span, so I only ready your first paragraph, and last paragraph, which were strangely the same.

Anyway. First, I never mentioned Joe’s tax lien. I don’t care about his tax lien, I don’t care about whether or not he has a plumbing license. I don’t care about any of this stuff. The point of the post was that a lot of conservative bloggers were trying to blame all these new troubles that Joe is going to have to face on Obama, which just isn’t true. Any ills that Joe may have to face, including the potential loss of his job, is the result of John McCain deciding he wanted to use Joe as a political symbol.

It’s a human interest story. When someone gets mentioned 26 times in a presidential debate, of course the media is going to do some digging because all of a sudden everyone wants to knwo who this guy is. It’s not our fault that he didn’t have his affairs in order.

And, I don’t know if you have been paying attention, but contrary to the spin, Joe actually would benefit from Obama’s tax plan, in fact, he would benefit more from Obama’s tax plan than he would McCain’s tax plan.

I wasn’t making personal attacks, at least not on Joe and not in this post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Given the crazies who are out there, it was unconscionable for Daily Kos to publish Joe the Plumber’s home address. Daily Kos was virtually urging the crazies to vandalize his home. It’s true Joe’s home address was already available to anyone who wanted to search for it. That only puts Daily Kos’ actions into harsher light. Publishing his address was a call to action.

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Beyond Daily Kos’ egregious action, the issue is not so much beating up a little guy as it is contrasting 1) media treatment of Joe, with 2) media treatment of Barack and friends. The Obama Campaign Treasurer has tax liens against him. Has that been tracked down by media? Have the implications been publicized and speculated upon? Joes info has already been tracked and speculated. Ayers has been an issue in this campaign: have TV trucks assembled outside the Ayers home? I could go on and on with other examples, but Ayers is the prime example of a double standard:

No media/Dem/left person know the truth of Barack’s political and philosophic relationship with William Ayers. Barack’s story has shifted:

Feb: kids went to school together
April: some guy in the neighborhood
May: they met at political event
Oct: they worked at Annenberg Challenge, but Barack didn’t know about Weathermen!

You can quibble with my brief descriptions, but you cannot quibble that Barack’s story has shifted. So, even though Barack’s story has shifted, every media/Dem/left person in existence take it as an article of faith there is “nothing to see there.” Why? In what universe do we take a politician’s word and then refuse to investigate the politician’s background? In what universe do we watch a politician try to hide something from us and then take it on faith there is “nothing so see there”? The point of investigating Joe the Plumber is it highlights what has not been investigated about Barack.

Finally: the “Joe the Plumber” phenomenon is largely about Barack’s words: “spread the wealth”. There are four revelatory incidents which shine light on Barack’s true opinions, and “spread the wealth” takes its place among them:

1. “First time I’ve been proud of my country”
and
2. “Goddamn America”
shine light on Barack’s opinion that something is fundamentally flawed about America.

3. “Cling to God and guns”
shines light on Barack’s disdain and condescension

4. “Spread the wealth”
shines light on Barack’s Euro-Socialist (or worse) economic beliefs.

Joe is a symbol of Americans who will be hurt by Barack’s Euro Socialist economic beliefs. You cannot tear down a symbol by pointing to his tax lien. You tear down a symbol by effectively arguing that Americans will not be hurt by Barack’s tax plan. Then the symbol ceases to exist. It *poofs* into nothingness, b/c Americans will not be hurt by Barack’s tax plan. You gain nothing by personal attacks on a symbol.

the fact that anyone is praising McCain for his performance in the third debate proves that he and Palin have lowered people’s expectations down to nothing (don’t forget, the VP debates were a tie!)

I know this can be looked upon as a screed against the normal people and yadda yadda. Nor do I think there’s anything wrong with being a plumber, etc.. Depending on how my academic efforts go, I might be there myself to earn a living. But it’s the glorification of these jobs — culminating in how we need somebody just like this in office — that pisses me off. Whatever happened to aspirations of greatness in America?

I’m reminded of a time when I started working at Electric Boat, doing steel construction work on nuclear subs for the Navy. Kind of a shitty job, but hey, it would have given me play in a presidential debate. Anyways, one of the old timers there pulls me and another young, new guy aside, asks us how old we are and where we worked before this (our background’s were in the computer industry), then asked “What the fuck are you guys doing here? If my son told me he wanted to at this place, I’d tell him fuck no! You’re going to college.” So if the candidates want to know what the middle class really thinks, there you go.

I’m sick of these four year cyclic races to the bottom. Obama — the cream of our American educational system — is reviled for being such; while a know-nothing schmuck like Palin is promoted for being just one of those folksy types. It’s crap; utter bullshit. While Republicans are busy glamorizing the lives of “normal” people, aspirations and the willingness to achieve more — what really moves this country forward — suffers.