Quote:/font1h,121b,121shouldn't we as citizens have the right to try to stump candidates who come to our neighborhoods? I suppose it's possible that he was a McCain operative. The New York Post on Wednesday had a story about this very incident and McCain pounced on it at the debate, probably based on the NY Post story. But none of us know any of that. The most plausible scenario is that he was out in his yard, Obama came through, he asked him a question and then the McCain campaign made of it what they did. At this point, Joe clearly embraced the media attention at first. But by the end of the news cycle everyone is talking about the poor guy's lack of a plumber's license and his back tax issues. My understanding is that a lot of this originated on Kos, which is a hyper partisan website. I thought that was inappropriate, to pry into his life because he asked the candidate a hard question. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121I guess you are more of a writer than a reporter. No newspaper reporter would say that a person in the news should not be investigated. That's how papers get played. That's how guys like Chalibi end up starting ill advised wars. b,121b,121Does the guy deserve his privacy?b,121b,121 b,121b,121The guy is a criminal, practicing plumbing with out a license, which means he's doing work with out permits, and not paying his taxes on top of it.b,121b,121Since when are criminals off limits for the media?
Quote:/font1h,121b,121shouldn't we as citizens have the right to try to stump candidates who come to our neighborhoods? I suppose it's possible that he was a McCain operative. The New York Post on Wednesday had a story about this very incident and McCain pounced on it at the debate, probably based on the NY Post story. But none of us know any of that. The most plausible scenario is that he was out in his yard, Obama came through, he asked him a question and then the McCain campaign made of it what they did. At this point, Joe clearly embraced the media attention at first. But by the end of the news cycle everyone is talking about the poor guy's lack of a plumber's license and his back tax issues. My understanding is that a lot of this originated on Kos, which is a hyper partisan website. I thought that was inappropriate, to pry into his life because he asked the candidate a hard question. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121b,121I'm not of the mindsest that Joe was an "operative." He certainly was used by the GOP before he was ever investigated, however. If John McCain didn't make an example of Joe, it's a guarantee that no one snoops on the "plumber." Not even KOS, which is largely a garbage site, nowadays. Incidentally, I never darken their doorstep because the site makes me feel slimy and ashamed to hold some of the same basic convictions as some of the folks on there. But it's just a bathroom wall.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121The press would not be doing their job if they did not find out who this guy was.b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121As I noted before, I would usually draw the line at literally who the guy was. One little human interest story, tops. It's not like he's anything more than a failed GOP prop. Happens every campaign trip, every year. The Dems and KOS looked really bad.b,121b,121But then the guy does - how many? 4? - major media interviews and a McCain ad and is asserting himself back into the news. Anything more, and I'll cease to feel sorry for the man.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121 I just want to point out that Obama approached Joe the plumber in his neighborhood b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121Obama was campaigning on the block where he lived. He deigned to ask him a question. Apparently dissent makes you nervous and jittery. b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121No, but maybe getting your facts straight would help your argument. Joe "Da Plumba" himself said he decided to ask ("corner" was the word he used) him a serious question. b,121b,121I agree that doesn't mean he should be publicly scrutinized, but he could have opted out of any and all interviews etc. The tax thing is to be expected once MCCAIN decided to make him the centerpiece of his debate. I don't agree with digging through people's business, but you can thank your main man Sir Grump A-Lot for helping make that happen.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121 "The Plumber" has done more interview's with the press in one day than the VP of the party you chose to back has done this entire campaign? b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121This is some realness. Man, what an insane election season.
b,121Doesn't it worry you just a little, that "The Plumber" has done more interview's with the press in one day than the VP of the party you chose to back has done this entire campaign?
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b,121I wouldn't worry. With all the Dems in power the next 4 years, you'll have plenty of time to bitch from the other side for a change when mistakes are made.
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b,121I hadn't realized how many interviews he'd done. In this respect, it's slightly less odious. But I think the guy is entitled to his privacy. He did not ask to be a subject of the debate and certainly he did not ask to have his back taxes issues and other such matters exposed for everyone to talk about. I have no problem with this sort of thing for public officials, they make a choice to be in the public eye, or for celebrities. But this guy did not seek any of this.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Graeme Frost appreciates your concern.b,121b,121But on the flip side, we know nothing about Joe the Plumber's countertops. If you can imagine that horror.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121It was "Joe" and "Joe" only who decided to raise the issue of paying more taxes when, in reality, he wasn't paying any taxes at all. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121And, who said he wanted to corner a candidate, thrust himself into the campaign, and then embarked on a media tour. b,121b,121He wanted to be involved? Well, he f*cking got it. Enjoy, you fraud.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121shouldn't we as citizens have the right to try to stump candidates who come to our neighborhoods? I suppose it's possible that he was a McCain operative. The New York Post on Wednesday had a story about this very incident and McCain pounced on it at the debate, probably based on the NY Post story. But none of us know any of that. The most plausible scenario is that he was out in his yard, Obama came through, he asked him a question and then the McCain campaign made of it what they did. At this point, Joe clearly embraced the media attention at first. But by the end of the news cycle everyone is talking about the poor guy's lack of a plumber's license and his back tax issues. My understanding is that a lot of this originated on Kos, which is a hyper partisan website. I thought that was inappropriate, to pry into his life because he asked the candidate a hard question. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121I guess you are more of a writer than a reporter. No newspaper reporter would say that a person in the news should not be investigated. That's how papers get played. That's how guys like Chalibi end up starting ill advised wars. b,121b,121Does the guy deserve his privacy?b,121b,121 b,121b,121The guy is a criminal, practicing plumbing with out a license, which means he's doing work with out permits, and not paying his taxes on top of it.b,121b,121Since when are criminals off limits for the media? b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121This makes no sense. So any private citizen who is mentioned by a politician, and hence is "in the news" is fair game for the media to uncover every detail of their private life? No. People who seek political power and celebrity should be investigated. Private citizens who become props through no fault of their own during debates should not. And none of this has anything to do with Ahmad Chalabi, a name that liberals like to pronounce that is apparently a synonym for war and evil.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121shouldn't we as citizens have the right to try to stump candidates who come to our neighborhoods? I suppose it's possible that he was a McCain operative. The New York Post on Wednesday had a story about this very incident and McCain pounced on it at the debate, probably based on the NY Post story. But none of us know any of that. The most plausible scenario is that he was out in his yard, Obama came through, he asked him a question and then the McCain campaign made of it what they did. At this point, Joe clearly embraced the media attention at first. But by the end of the news cycle everyone is talking about the poor guy's lack of a plumber's license and his back tax issues. My understanding is that a lot of this originated on Kos, which is a hyper partisan website. I thought that was inappropriate, to pry into his life because he asked the candidate a hard question. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121I guess you are more of a writer than a reporter. No newspaper reporter would say that a person in the news should not be investigated. That's how papers get played. That's how guys like Chalibi end up starting ill advised wars. b,121b,121Does the guy deserve his privacy?b,121b,121 b,121b,121The guy is a criminal, practicing plumbing with out a license, which means he's doing work with out permits, and not paying his taxes on top of it.b,121b,121Since when are criminals off limits for the media? b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121This makes no sense. So any private citizen who is mentioned by a politician, and hence is "in the news" is fair game for the media to uncover every detail of their private life? No. People who seek political power and celebrity should be investigated. Private citizens who become props through no fault of their own during debates should not. And none of this has anything to do with Ahmad Chalabi, a name that liberals like to pronounce that is apparently a synonym for war and evil. b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121b,121b,121Split some more hairs E** and you can open a barber shop.
Corners,b,121b,121Do you really think this guy deserved to have the whole country talking about his lack of a plumber's license because John McCain decided to talk about him? If Obama started talking about someone who asked McCain a hard question at one of his rallies and then it was exposed that she was a fraud, I am certain all of you would be tsk tsking the media for delving into her personal life. I would join you.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121Corners,b,121b,121Do you really think this guy deserved to have the whole country talking about his lack of a plumber's license because John McCain decided to talk about him? If Obama started talking about someone who asked McCain a hard question at one of his rallies and then it was exposed that she was a fraud, I am certain all of you would be tsk tsking the media for delving into her personal life. I would join you. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121Vitamin, Joe put himself in the campaign, and seemed all to happy to take any interviewer that called. If he is going to put himself out there, he opens himself up to scrutiny.
I don't think he thought it through all the way. I think he was out in his yard, playing catch with his kid, and saw Obama to ask a question. I think he liked the idea of talking to all these journalists and then I think Democratic operatives set out to destroy him and make public all this stuff on him. Why? Because he asked a question and it was a major part of the debate.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121I don't think he thought it through all the way. I think he was out in his yard, playing catch with his kid, and saw Obama to ask a question. I think he liked the idea of talking to all these journalists and then I think Democratic operatives set out to destroy him and make public all this stuff on him. Why? Because he asked a question and it was a major part of the debate. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121b,121I think he's just another interwebs pay-tree-yut who thought he'd step up and grab his very own "gotcha" moment, only it was he that got "got", hoisted by his own petard as it were.
Do you think we'd still be talking about "Joe" if he didn't hold a press conference in his front yard? b,121b,121Rhetorical -- the answer is "no." Once everyone saw that he wasn't interested in becoming any more of the story than he already was, the press would pack up their vans and go back to covering the real news.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121I don't think he thought it through all the way. I think he was out in his yard, playing catch with his kid, and saw Obama to ask a question. I think he liked the idea of talking to all these journalists and then I think Democratic operatives set out to destroy him and make public all this stuff on him. Why? Because he asked a question and it was a major part of the debate. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121Vitamin, the press would have put this dude on blast regardless of whether Daily Kos did their own digging and promoting of their finds. The AP was trying to sniff him out before the debate even ended. Any news organization with the means to find out info on dude would have been racing to get that scoop, so blaming the situation on "Democratic operatives set out to destroy him" is bogus. Joe the Plumber became a media obsession not because Democratic operatives were trying to expose him, but because he got mentioned in a highly-watched presidential debate about fifty-lebum times. It's the nature of the media.b,121b,121That said, they need to leave that dude alone and move on.
Didn't the GOP do this to a family who appeared in an ad about health insurance? I want to say it was during the 2004 campaign and they were talking about how, under the Bush plan, they - as a middle class family - couldn't afford health insurance for their autistic son (I could be mis-remembering some of the details). b,121b,121And the GOP and Fox News especially WENT TO TOWN on this family. b,121b,121I thought that shit was vaguely "fair game" but also seemed really mean-spirited too. This idea that Joe Plumber was "asking for it" seems more ideologically driven than anything else. If the roles were reversed, I'm betting more than a few of you would be crying foul.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121Didn't the GOP do this to a family who appeared in an ad about health insurance? I want to say it was during the 2004 campaign and they were talking about how, under the Bush plan, they - as a middle class family - couldn't afford health insurance for their autistic son (I could be mis-remembering some of the details). b,121b,121And the GOP and Fox News especially WENT TO TOWN on this family. b,121 b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121Yeah, that's what I was jabbing Vitamin about before. It was the Frost family (Graeme Frost is the 12-year-old kid whose medical condition was the centerpiece of the whole thing), and the right wing went apeshit on them to the point that Michelle Malkin was pretty much stalking them and investigating their countertops (dead serious--she gave breathless reports about what kind of countertops the Frost family had).b,121b,121So to see the right wing all of sudden think that such people should be off-limits is...well, if I'm kind, I'll call it disingenuous. But I'm not feeling particularly kind right now, so I'll just go ahead and call it a steaming pile of horseshit.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121Didn't the GOP do this to a family who appeared in an ad about health insurance? I want to say it was during the 2004 campaign and they were talking about how, under the Bush plan, they - as a middle class family - couldn't afford health insurance for their autistic son (I could be mis-remembering some of the details). b,121b,121And the GOP and Fox News especially WENT TO TOWN on this family. b,121 b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121Yeah, that's what I was jabbing Vitamin about before. It was the Frost family (Graeme Frost is the 12-year-old kid whose medical condition was the centerpiece of the whole thing), and the right wing went apeshit on them to the point that Michelle Malkin was pretty much stalking them and investigating their countertops (dead serious--she gave breathless reports about what kind of countertops the Frost family had).b,121b,121So to see the right wing all of sudden think that such people should be off-limits is...well, if I'm kind, I'll call it disingenuous. But I'm not feeling particularly kind right now, so I'll just go ahead and call it a steaming pile of horseshit. b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121Naw, I agree - it is disingenuous but it's also politics as usual: people will defend their side when they behave unfavorably but castigate the other side when it serves their interests. b,121b,121I think Joe owing back taxes is quite relevant - for entertainment purposes at the very least - but I don't know if it's a good idea to have us cheering on the dissection of a private citizen in this manner.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121I think Joe owing back taxes is quite relevant - for entertainment purposes at the very least - but I don't know if it's a good idea to have us cheering on the dissection of a private citizen in this manner. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121Someone needs to vote that mutherfucker off the island next week.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121shouldn't we as citizens have the right to try to stump candidates who come to our neighborhoods? I suppose it's possible that he was a McCain operative. The New York Post on Wednesday had a story about this very incident and McCain pounced on it at the debate, probably based on the NY Post story. But none of us know any of that. The most plausible scenario is that he was out in his yard, Obama came through, he asked him a question and then the McCain campaign made of it what they did. At this point, Joe clearly embraced the media attention at first. But by the end of the news cycle everyone is talking about the poor guy's lack of a plumber's license and his back tax issues. My understanding is that a lot of this originated on Kos, which is a hyper partisan website. I thought that was inappropriate, to pry into his life because he asked the candidate a hard question. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121I guess you are more of a writer than a reporter. No newspaper reporter would say that a person in the news should not be investigated. That's how papers get played. That's how guys like Chalibi end up starting ill advised wars. b,121b,121Does the guy deserve his privacy?b,121b,121 b,121b,121The guy is a criminal, practicing plumbing with out a license, which means he's doing work with out permits, and not paying his taxes on top of it.b,121b,121Since when are criminals off limits for the media? b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121This makes no sense. So any private citizen who is mentioned by a politician, and hence is "in the news" is fair game for the media to uncover every detail of their private life? No. People who seek political power and celebrity should be investigated. Private citizens who become props through no fault of their own during debates should not. And none of this has anything to do with Ahmad Chalabi, a name that liberals like to pronounce that is apparently a synonym for war and evil. b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121No body has delved into Joe's private life. I find it hard to believe that you ever worked for a daily. b,121b,121Whether or not Joe has a plumbing license or pays his taxes is part of the public record. It is not part of his private life. b,121b,121It has a lot to do with Chalabi. Why? Because like Joe and Palin, Chalabi was a prop used to push through an agenda. And like Palin and Joe he was not what those who propped him up said he was. b,121b,121You like to say that Joe Wilson is con artist, because you caught him in a minor lie, which gives you a reason to disregard everything true he said.b,121b,121Yet you set scum like Chalabi, Palin and Joe up as above reproach and get bent out of shape when someone wants to know who they truly are.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121/font1Quote:/font1h,121b,121shouldn't we as citizens have the right to try to stump candidates who come to our neighborhoods? I suppose it's possible that he was a McCain operative. The New York Post on Wednesday had a story about this very incident and McCain pounced on it at the debate, probably based on the NY Post story. But none of us know any of that. The most plausible scenario is that he was out in his yard, Obama came through, he asked him a question and then the McCain campaign made of it what they did. At this point, Joe clearly embraced the media attention at first. But by the end of the news cycle everyone is talking about the poor guy's lack of a plumber's license and his back tax issues. My understanding is that a lot of this originated on Kos, which is a hyper partisan website. I thought that was inappropriate, to pry into his life because he asked the candidate a hard question. b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121I guess you are more of a writer than a reporter. No newspaper reporter would say that a person in the news should not be investigated. That's how papers get played. That's how guys like Chalibi end up starting ill advised wars. b,121b,121Does the guy deserve his privacy?b,121b,121 b,121b,121The guy is a criminal, practicing plumbing with out a license, which means he's doing work with out permits, and not paying his taxes on top of it.b,121b,121Since when are criminals off limits for the media? b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121This makes no sense. So any private citizen who is mentioned by a politician, and hence is "in the news" is fair game for the media to uncover every detail of their private life? No. People who seek political power and celebrity should be investigated. Private citizens who become props through no fault of their own during debates should not. And none of this has anything to do with Ahmad Chalabi, a name that liberals like to pronounce that is apparently a synonym for war and evil. b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121No body has delved into Joe's private life. I find it hard to believe that you ever worked for a daily. b,121b,121Whether or not Joe has a plumbing license or pays his taxes is part of the public record. It is not part of his private life. b,121b,121It has a lot to do with Chalabi. Why? Because like Joe and Palin, Chalabi was a prop used to push through an agenda. And like Palin and Joe he was not what those who propped him up said he was. b,121b,121You like to say that Joe Wilson is con artist, because you caught him in a minor lie, which gives you a reason to disregard everything true he said.b,121b,121Yet you set scum like Chalabi, Palin and Joe up as above reproach and get bent out of shape when someone wants to know who they truly are. b,121b,121h,121b,121b,121b,121
Quote:/font1h,121b,121investigating their countertops b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121When Dub brought it up this was the only detail I can remember. Something about if they can afford marble counter tops they aren't like you and me. b,121b,121Vitamin needs to admit that no one has violated Joe and what has come to light about him is all fair game. b,121b,121The way he is talking now about how journalist should just report what McCain says and take it is truth and never investigate further reminds of his views on Bush and Iraqi intelligence.
Quote:/font1h,121b,121b,121The way he is talking now about how journalist should just report what McCain says and take it is truth and never investigate further b,121b,121h,121
b,121b,121I believe what you just described is called "Fox News due diligence."b,121b,121b/wb,121b,121You sound unpatriotic.
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