Random acts of writing: Searching for a good plumber (or just Joe)
By Craig Carter
Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:45 PM PDT
Did you catch the last debate? It was the one that was seemingly won by Joe the Plumber.
For those of you who don’t know, Joe the Plumber is a real guy. His name is Joe Wurzelburger, he’s from Ohio, and he had either the good, or the incredibly horrible fortune, of asking Barack Obama a question at a campaign rally.
Supposedly, Joe is going to buy a plumbing business, and he pointed out to Obama that if his business makes more than $250,000 a year, his taxes will be increased under Obama’s economic plan.
This made Joe the Plumber a big hit with John the presidential candidate that can’t seem to get any real political traction to save his life lately. Which led John the presidential candidate (we’ll call him that for short) to mention Joe the Plumber in the debate, to claim that his esteemed opponent, Barack the presidential candidate that way too many people think of as a savior, wanted to give all the Joe the Plumbers in America a wedgie.
If you don’t know what a wedgie is, look it up. Or better yet, ask your friendly neighborhood third-grader. They’ll know. Believe me, they’ll know.
It seems Joe the Plumber doesn’t like wedgies. Even though there would be something, if not poetic, certainly lyrical about the phrase, “My esteemed opponent wants to give Wurzelburger a wedgie.” So Sen. McCain tried to capitalize on Joe the Plumber’s desire to avoid getting a wedgie, even from a presidential candidate, so he mentioned Joe the Plumber like a gazillion times during the third and last debate. He never once mentioned the term “middle class,” but he did mention Joe the Plumber, like a gazillion times.
Which led an electronic media with far too much time to fill and far too little scruples and common decency for anyone’s good to look into good ol’ Joe, and they found out some very interesting things about him.
Such as the fact that Joe the Plumber isn’t a licensed plumber. Which is probably why he owes the IRS $1,200. A licensed plumber could make that kind of scratch on one good weekend after-hours call, wherein someone’s lovely wife tried to put half a roast and a head of lettuce into the garbage disposal at the same time. (I’m not calling anyone in particular out here. Really, I’m not. The fact that I used the term “lovely wife,” and I just happen to have one of those played no role whatsoever in my choice of words. Really. Seriously. Nothing whatsoever.)
At any rate, Joe the Plumber quickly became Joe the dude the media built up and was determined to tear back down in a real big hurry. In this pursuit, it was learned that Joe the Plumber was a registered voter, but he wasn’t registered with either party, and, when asked, he refused to divulge which candidate was going to get his support. The nerve.
How can Joe the Plumber possibly expect the electronic media that has way too much time to fill and far too little sense of decency or common courtesy to properly discredit and humiliate Joe the Plumber if they can’t pigeon hole him as either a hateful, redneck, racist conservative jerk or a whiny, terrorist sympathizing, dishonest un-American liberal?
Just so you know, I know for a fact that Joe the Plumber is not a hippie-freak, free-love liberal. I mean, look at the guy and ask yourself, does anything about this dude suggest hippie freak, free love to me? I think not.
The media hasn’t torn Joe the Plumber all the way down yet, but that’s OK because, since the candidates learned he won’t commit one way or the other, neither campaign cares anymore, and the media is on the verge of moving on to other things.
Like Paris the annoying, slutty heiress and “High School Musical 3,” the movie everyone will be talking about for months. Priorities, people. Priorities.
