Enough With the Spartacus-With-a-Plunger Already

Posted by Warren Street, They Gave Us a Republic at 4:54 AM on October 19, 2008.

You are NOT Joe. You're just wingnuts who would be enthusiastically destroying this guy and howling for blood if he was an Obama supporter. At least have the common decency to admit it.

First, a pre-emptive apology for the intentional non-humor to follow. I promise that all future non-humor will be strictly unintentional.

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.

Of course, blaming that cheating old coot John McCain for bringing him up, repeatedly, and without having vetted him or without bothering to have found out if the man was a lying, no-tax-paying member of Natural Law Party is something the wingnuts cannot fathom.

No one wants to see the guy destroyed, and that is certainly not condoned here. But it's a little like watching a fox come out of the henhouse, covered in blood and feathers, and decry the violence done to the chicken who was watching out for him so he could finish off the hens.

Here's what actually happened, though:

Obama came to my neighborhood and my son and I were outside tossing the football, and all of a sudden he showed up, and there went our football tossing for a while. And, you know, neighbors were outside asking him questions, and I didn't think they were asking him tough enough questions, so I thought, you know, I'll go over there. You know, I've always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them to answer a question of--for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question but I still got a tap dance. Do you--almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.

Obama didn't "use him as a prop." Wurzelbacher started it, in his own words. And he tried to make a mockery out of Obama--well, how'd that work out for ya, Joe?

And you'll have to pardon the fuck out of us for not shedding any tears for Joe:

Yesterday, TrueMajorityAction released an ad of 2-year old Bethany Wilkerson, who was born with a serious heart problem and received health insurance through the SCHIP program. Today, the Wilkerson family will appear with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to rally support for increased funding of the SCHIP program.

Like the Frost family, the Wilkerson family has already become the subject of right-wing attacks. Michelle Malkin - whose baseless smear campaign against 12-year old Graeme Frost was deemed too bogus for even Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) - is now trying to rally the right against Bethany.

Heralding the arrival of a "new toddler-aged human shield," Malkin writes that "the Wilkersons made a choice" - a seeming reference to the fact that Malkin now believes she has the license to attack the Wilkersons for their public support of SCHIP. "We need more 'partisan bickering,' not less," added Malkin.

Who are the totalitarians again? I missed that...

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Tagged as: republicans, false populism

Warren Street is a contributor at They Gave Us a Republica.