America’s own Renaissance Man, Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, has tackled many tasks. He has been an author, a country singer, a digital TV promoter, a tax advisor, a pundit, and a campaign mascot. One of the few things he has not been is a plumber.
Now Joe has found a new peak to scale. He is being sent to Israel as a war correspondent for Pajamas Media (that’s right, Pajamas). We at News Corpse have great confidence that he will be a crack reporter who will wrench the truth from his subjects. Israeli and Hamas officials will be comfortable disclosing sensitive data because – think about it – who knows more about leaks?
It will be a draining assignment, but Joe is surely up to it. After all, he has such a wealth of experience at his disposal to help him flush out any story.
Plumber Joe says that he wants to report from the perspective of the “Average Joe.” And who better to tell that story than a lying tax evader who pals around with failed presidential candidates? Never mind that he knows nothing about the region, or the people, or the conflict in which they are embroiled. He believes that God will protect him in this dangerous mission (except from mortars, so it must be one of those discount Gods), and that it’s a chance to do some good. But he had better do it quickly because he is scheduled to speak at the Pajamas Media Conservative 2.0 Conference at the end of February back in Washington, D.C.
There is little chance that Joe can dredge up anything but embarrassment from this. And while the Pajamas crew was never known for their professionalism or integrity, it’s still a little surprising that they would sink this low. Joe has demonstrated in his previous television appearances that he is no Christiane Amanpour. She would probably laugh in his face and call him a pathetic hack. And what could he do? I guess he could tell her to pipe down, and if that didn’t work he could sewer.
Update: Fox News hosted Mr. Wurzelbacher this morning and extracted the news-making exclusive that Joey the P has quit the plumbing business for good. What will we call him now?
He might get mixed up and think that the Isrraelis are the terrorists.
Without getting into the Israel/Palestine debate, because I think both sides are behaving badly, I will point out that Joe is hardly a neutral party.
In a campaign stop last year he was asked by a McCain supporter if he believed a vote for Obama was a vote for the death of Israel. He agreed that it was. So in his ignoramus view, America voted to kill Israel.
Pajamas Media has a radio show on Sirus/XM’s POTUS channel (XM 130). Yesterday, I heard a PJM moderator (didn’t catch the name) and Michelle Malkin discussing this issue.
Based pretty much on the data-mined clip of a pro-Hamas protester screaming death to all Jews or some similar hate-filled rubbish, they built a case of straw by repeating the common conservative stereotype of the “liberal mainstream media.”
Their argument is pretty disgusting. Essentially, they accused the media of covering up the radical Muslim’s agenda promoting genocide against Israel.
Since you don’t want to get into the deeper politics here, I won’t go further in describing some really chilling right-wing talking points extending this argument.
But the point’s made this isn’t just the buffoonery of Joe The Plumber or even Michelle Malkin’s screeching. PJM explicitly picked Joe due to his much-condemned “America voted to kill Israel” comment because they’re sure he’ll be able to cut through all the liberal media’s lies. As they put it, he, being a plumber, is used to standing hip deep in s**t (yes, that’s the metaphor they used).
BTW, if I recall, “Pajamas” comes from Dan Rather tongue lashing conservative bloggers as being a bunch of guys wearing pajamas posting from their (or mom’s?) basement.
I agree that PJMedia picked Joe for his views” but even more so because they hankered for some good ole publicity.
As for Malkin, she wrote a thoroughly boneheaded defense of Joe, arguing that he would do no more harm than the mainstream press. I considered posting a dissection of it, but decided that there was so much wrong with it that it wasn’t worth my time.
I think there’s a typo in your title. It should read: “Joe The Plumber: Now A Reporter On Crack.” 😉
I just ran across this video of our ace reporter filled with unintentional humor.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×258399
From struggling to come up with questions to ask to claiming the media shouldn’t be reporting the war, this guy’s a complete farce.
I couldn’t get your link to load, but ThinkProgress has the video now and I posted it above. It’s downright scary. Thanks for the tip.