This will be the last post (unless these two people force me to do more) on whiney, inarticulate people who should enhance their 15 minutes of fame by keeping their uninformed mouths shut.
Joe the Plumber was given the job by Pajama Media of war correspondent. He went to Israel, became confrontational with an Israeli reporter, then pronounced that there should be no media reporting on wars (all of this while he, um, is reporting on the Israeli-Hamas war). Does that sound dumb?
Why yes. Yes, it does.
Joe the Plumber, like Gov. Palin, is completely unaware of his incongruities and lack of knowledge when he speaks. But that doesn't stop certain conservatives from promoting these people--even making them media celebrities. Joe and Sarah do, however, give us a chance to have a very hearty laugh.
JOE THE PLUMBER:
"I'll be honest with you. I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war (sic). I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for them.
Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, "Well look at this atrocity," well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."
JOE THE PLUMBER WITH THE ISRAELI REPORTER:
JOE: The story here is people are being killed and the media's slanting it and trying to make it Hamas is, uh, as far as, that Israel's being bad. Do you believe Israel is bad?
REPORTER: Do I believe it?
JOE: Yeah, do you?!
REPORTER: I'm Israeli, so...
JOE: So answer the question
REPORTER: No, I don't think Israel is bad.
JOE: Do you think Israel has every right to protect itself?
REPORTER: Yeah.
[pause]
JOE: You do?!
REPORTER: Yeah.
JOE: Have you said that on air?
REPORTER: I'm just a reporter.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Thanks for the laugh, Joe.
16 comments:
He sure gets vilified a lot because he asked Obama a tough question, to which Obama gave a bad answer.
I guess this even justifies Democratic Party operatives illegally searching through government files for information on him, too.
No matter what a lout he is, he asked Obama a tough question, and Obama gave a bad answer to it.
Many people have called into question the logic of JtP's (Sam Wurzelbacher's) question to Mr. Obama, and pointed out that he would have actually benefited from Obama's tax plan.
Joe the Plumber told Mr. Obama he was preparing to buy a plumbing company that earns more than $250,000 a year, and said, “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?”
Mr. Obama stopped and explained his plan, acknowledging that those who earn more than $250,000 a year would see their taxes rise to 39 per cent from 36 per cent.
“You're going to be better off if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody,”
The "spreading the wealth around" statement in the context of that answer is very clear. When everyone is doing well, there's money out there to spend on plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc. When people have to scrimp because the economy is in the tank, who has money for extras? That was the point.
But the McCain campaign jumped on it and deliberately misinterpreted it, he seized upon the notion of spreading “the wealth around,” and criticized Mr. Obama as a steal-from-the-rich advocate of higher taxes.
JtP said Mr. Obama tap-danced around the answer, “almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”
JtP was neither a licensed plumber, nor was he going to buy a business. He wasn't financially solvent enough to do so. And he owed the government in back taxes.
IOW, JtP was a complete lie.
Barack Obama did NOT do a poor job.
He believed, when he answered JtP, that he was speaking to a regular, working American with a legitimate question.
He wasn't.
I believe he was a set-up.
Everything JtP told Obama was a lie.
JtP should seek his own help as he has his head firmly planted up his own "out pipe"
Joe thanks you for perpetuating his 15.
But, John, JtP isn't a licensed plumber, so he would have to hire one to perform that action.
Patrick,
Why does the conservative media continue to promote Joe the Fraud?
Of course Joe shouldn't have been targeted by overzealous Ohio officials accessing his driving records. Whomever they may have been.
On the other hand his question of candidate Obama was not 'tough'. Rather it was profoundly ignorant and Obama did a good job of answering.
Once Joe is able to grasp the distinction between gross revenue and net income it will be easier for him to understand tax rates.
But I'm not hopeful. The man seems to take unreasonable pride is his profound ignorance on a whole range of topics.
Robert Schlesinger of US News & World Report has this to say about Joe the War Correspondent regarding not having journalists cover wars:
Memo to Joe the Propagandist:
That's been tried. Do you remember Baghdad Bob? He was certainly good for entertainment, though I can't speak to troop morale. It's been tried by people in other countries as well, some of whom were the villains in those newsreels Joe the Historian recalls so fondly.
Let's skip the basic civics lesson about the role of a free press in a free society; and let's skip slippery-slope questions like: If Joe the Philosopher is right, then when engaged in a "war" without front lines, should independent media be abolished entirely? (Could we keep sports reporting?)
And while it may not occur to Joe the Television Consumer that people might have ever gotten their news in any fashion other than from a screen, war correspondents existed well before either of the World Wars. Reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Ernie Pyle were revered and beloved by not only the soldiers but by families back home anxious for news—not propaganda—about what was going on at the front. The military worked to keep Pyle at the front lines for morale reasons during World War II—and he was killed there by sniper fire.
I covered the Pentagon—which is not to suggest that I was a war correspondent—for a couple of years for the Boston Globe. I once had the opportunity to see retired Gen. Harold Moore speak about military-media relations. Moore fought in Korea and Vietnam. Joe the Film Critic might remember Moore as having been played by Mel Gibson in the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers about the famous Ia Drang battle in Vietnam. The movie was based on a book Moore cowrote with—wait for it—a reporter who was there with the troops.
Moore told us that he had welcomed reporters in Vietnam. "I just loved for my troops to get bragged about and for the press to write up my troops," Moore told us. "I was so damn proud of my troops for what they were doing in that tragic war."
When we asked Moore about the notion that the media lost the Vietnam War by ginning up criticism at home, he replied: "That didn't bother me. People in America have a freedom to do that. I fought in a couple of wars for that freedom."
But I'm sure Joe the Military Strategist knows more about such things than does Hal the General.
The rest is here:
http://tinyurl.com/74bve5
"Mr. Obama stopped and explained his plan, acknowledging that those who earn more than $250,000 a year would see their taxes rise to 39 per cent from 36 per cent."
Last I'd heard, Obama had cancelled this promise because it would hurt the economy, and the last thing we can afford is more hits on the economy. Credit is due to him for not following through on bad promises.
Pelosi is insisting on unnecessary greed, and may come to loggerheads with President Obama over this.
"And while it may not occur to Joe the Television Consumer"
I have yet to consume a TV, but unless I unload some sets that might become worthless at the DTV changeover, I might have some worthless ones sitting around. Maybe they go down better with butter.
No butter, dmarks, it's bad for your arteries. Try EVOO.*
I hear it's delicious with MSNBC. ;-)
*extra virgin olive oil.
MSNBC? Is that still around?
Shaw: What about mixing butter with EVOO? Yum-o! And don't even get me started about bacon fat.
Also, they promote Joe to piss you off. :)
Sometimes a recipe calls for using olive oil and a tablespoon of butter to saute either fish or meat.
Bacon fat makes everything taste good, but your arteries pay a price for that taste.
I actually love chocolate covered bacon.
I forgot to give you the link for CCB:
http://tinyurl.com/85cps
I've had handmade marzipan in the Yucatan made with a bit of bacon fat.
Of course it's terrific. There isn't much pig doesn't improve.
But if you really want to shrink those arteries and have your clothes burst at the seams try this:
http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?areaid=0&restaurantid=2412&neighborhoodid=0&cuisineid=23&readmore=true&home=Y
Everything is mit schmaltz.
"I've had handmade marzipan in the Yucatan"
I sense the makings of a Jimmy Buffet song buried in that nearly-rhyming statement.
dmark;
There are enough tone-deaf, musically challenged singer-songwriters plying their craft without me adding to the noise.
But I will sue if I hear the phrase on the radio.
Cheers!
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