October 18, 2008
NYC Letter: Iowahawk The Joe
Countdown 16 days to go
When something is well said, when it cannot be, need not be, improved, the best we can do is step aside and let that something speak for itself.
OBAMA MADNESS: DESTROY ALL JOE!
All Your Joe Belong To Us!
October 17, 2008 (Iowahawk) - We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.
Godwin's Law! you say? if the jackboot fits, wear it.
If it's meta-memes and meta-meta-narratives these media headlice want, so be it. I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style. I AM JOE. I am a Wal Mart schlub in flyover country who changes my own oil and unclogs drains without a license. I smoke and drink beer and toss the football in the front yard with my kid, and I figure I can fend my way without handouts from some Magic Messiah's candy bags. Most everyone in my family and most everyone I grew up with is another Joe, and if you screw with them, you screw with me.
Are you a Joe? Say it proud. Leave it on every goddamn newspaper comment section and online forum. Let these pressroom and online thugs know you won't stay silent when they try to destroy the life of a private citizen for speaking his mind -- because for every one of them, there are a million Joe Wurzelbachers. And for that we should all be thankful.
Amen.
Posted by Damian at October 18, 2008 12:00 PMGet over yourself. Save your indignation for a worthier cause. I have a problem with people who seem to feel sorry for themselves for no reason. "Joe" was grabbed by the McCain campaign for political points. He was never "attacked" by the Obama campaign. Now, in rushing to his defense, the McCain campaign CONTINUES TO EXPLOIT THE MAN FOR POLITICAL GAIN. You, my friend, are being played like a fiddle.
Posted by: franglo at October 18, 2008 07:44 PMMr. Franglo asks that we get over ourselves, though we have not occupied ourselves with ourselves in this post.
Mr. Franglo informs us he has a problem with people who feel sorry for themselves for no reason. Yet nowhere do we mope or moan. We do not whine. Neither is the subject of the post, Joe the plumber, reported to be indulging in self-weep.
Mr. Franglo then brings up the Obama campaign when we have not.
We invite Mr. Franglo to re-read the post after setting aside his own self-fascinations. The post is about the inordinate media response to a guy whose opinion was sought and solicited for a by-the-numbers photo op. Mr. Wurzelbacher asked an unscripted question, it was Mr. Obama's unscripted answer that got Mr. Obama in trouble. To limit the damage, the media made Mr. Wurzelbacher the focus of attention not Mr. Obama's answer.
Here are a few questions for Mr. Franglo, who is David Cercone? Who is LeeAnn Anderson? Adam Florzak? Mark Strauss? [Pause.] These were all Democratic candidate plants passed off as "undecided" voters. Each had affiliations with campaigns or organizations that had declared for a candidate in primary debates. They were picked and planted to ask tough and embarrassing questions of their candidates' opponents in folksy "town hall" debates. Yet the media didn't rush in to investigate these phonies even after their bogus "undecided" status was exposed.
Mr. Wurzelbacher in contrast was not a plant. He did not play to script, and Mr. Obama tripped himself up. We dare say that if Mr. Franglo follows the news with more care than he read our post, he now knows more about Mr. Wurzelbacher than he does about Mr. Obama.
The media has busied itself trying to discredit Mr. Wurzelbacher itstead of squaring Mr. Obama's answer with his advertised policies.
And that, dear reader, is the point of our post.
We do not believe we are being played like a fiddle, but we do think Mr. Franglo is playing the world's smallest fiddle in defense of an argument we have not made.
DGB
Posted by: Damian at October 19, 2008 04:54 PM
