PrintAugust 3, 2009
His Name is Joe and He's a Plumber
I first heard it from a regular Daily Kos reader: "He's known as Joe the Plumber, except his name's not Joe and he's not a plumber." Now, almost a year after Joe first met Barack, Reuters is still playing that tune. I've had enough of it.
The latest article from Reuters, which reports on a non-event with a misleading headline, includes the following snark:
"Reporters later learned that Wurzelbacher did not have a plumbing license, was behind on his taxes, had a real first name of Sam, and was unmarried with a teenage son."
Name. Joe's full name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. He goes by his middle name, Joseph. That means it is his real name. His name is Joe. Many people go by their middle names. Can you name the 28th President of the United States? That would be Wilson, or more correctly, Thomas Woodrow Wilson. When newspapers and history books stop calling him "Woodrow Wilson" and start calling him "Thomas Wilson", we'll start calling Joe the Plumber "Sam the Plumber".
Plumber. S. Joseph Wurzelbacher made his living by doing plumbing work for a plumbing company. That makes him a plumber. Or at least it made him a plumber at the time Obama went to his house unsolicited and got flustered when Joe asked him a question. Note that he is not called "Joe the Licensed Plumber".
A license does not define what you do; what you do defines what you do, especially if you get paid for doing it. Was Joe practicing plumbing without a license, illegally? Joe says no. He was never arrested or even cited for it, nor was the company he worked for. The law is not totally clear: it might be OK in some municipalities and townships, but not all; or it might be OK if Joe was considered an apprentice. In any case, Joe was a plumber, whether or not he needed a license everywhere he did plumbing.
Taxes. It does appear that Joe owed some taxes, in the amount of $1,182.92. Poor Joe didn't find that out, though, until our diligent press did Obama's opposition research for him. Those taxes owed went all the way back to January 2007. Joe met Barack in August 2008. Do the math. Joe's underpaid taxes were for 2007, to be filed by April of 2008. Ohio's revenue department did not even have time to process Joe's taxes by then and inform him he owed anything. Is Joe supposed to be guilty for not paying a bill he never received and never knew he owed?
Not to mention, our current Secretary of the Treasury was behind in his taxes by $34,000 (a bill almost 30 times bigger than Joe's, and owed for a longer period). President Obama himself had 17 unpaid parking tickets after he left Harvard. He paid them when he started his run for President. So he owed that money all the time he was a community organizer, law school instructor, lawyer and Illinois state senator. And he knew he owed them that whole time.
Also, what does this have to do with whether he is "Joe", a "plumber" or asked a legitimate question of a presidential candidate?
Unmarried? What does this have to do with anything, teenage son or not? So Joe was divorced, just like about 50% of all husbands at one time or another. And if he had his teen son with him, that says the boy's mother and/or the family court thought Joe a fit father. So he's "Joe the Plumber and Fit Father". Again, what does this have to do with whether the questions he put to Obama, or the comments he made since, were legitimate?
Who Says? And who calls Joe the Plumber "Joe the Plumber"? Does he call himself that? Who gave him that moniker? This could very well be a case where the media gives a normal citizen a nickname, and then criticizes him for his nickname!
The Latest Non-Story. Reuters' headline was "Both Political Parties Offend ‘Joe the Plumber'". Here is what Joe actually said, according to Reuters:
"Does the Republican Party represent anything I stand for right now? Absolutely not. Right now the Republican Party doesn't even know what it stands for."
Where in that statement does Joe say the Republican Party "offends" him?
Reuters also snarks that Joe "has managed to prolong his 15 minutes of fame". Excuse me, Reuters, but Joe met Barack 11 months before you wrote this. If Joe's 15 minutes are being prolonged, he's not doing it by himself.
Pity the normal guy or gal who speaks truth to Democrat power.
Randall Hoven can be contacted at randall.hoven@gmail.com or via his web site, kulak.worldbreak.com.
