Life is an IQ Test--"Joe the Plumber"

It’s nice to have an easy one, a no-brainer. Actually, countering conservative Republicans’ talking points is always easy. The hard part is getting rank-and-file conservatives to shift their brains out of neutral for even a minute and think.

The McCain campaign, and it’s water-carrying cohorts in the conservative media, have consistently mischaracterized the now infamous encounter between Barrack Obama and “Joe the plumber.” For example, Laura Ingraham, filling in for Bill O’Reilly on The O’Reilly Factor (10/17/2008), repeatedly stated that Senator Obama approached “Joe the plumber.” John McCain, in his standard stump speech, says “Joe didn’t ask Senator Obama to come to his house, he didn’t ask to be famous, and he didn’t ask for the attacks he’s been getting from the Obama campaign.” At a rally in Wiles-Barre, PA (10/18/2008), Cindy McCain claimed that Obama didn’t answer “Joe’s” question, conjecturing that perhaps Senator Obama didn’t like the question, and gibing “I thought we had a right to ask questions of our leaders.” (So, Cindy, when is your husband going to let Sarah Palin off the leash for a solo press conference?)

Why politicians and their lackeys persist in misrepresenting events is incomprehensible. I suppose it’s a case of old habits die hard. But in this day and age, when it seems that everything is recorded on video and promptly posted on the Web, we don’t have to debate over who did or said what—we can look and see for ourselves.

If one simply examines the video, it is clear that Laura Ingraham, John McCain, Cindy McCain, and their army of water-carrying conservatives need to remove their heads from their asses at least a few times every decade. Barack Obama did not come to “Joe’s” house (or driveway)—Obama was in the street. Senator Obama did not approach “Joe”—quite the contrary, “Joe” made a considerable effort to work his way through the crowd to reach Obama and ask a question. And Senator Obama displayed absolutely no hesitation or discomfort in answering “Joe’s” question—in fact, Obama seemed to welcome the question, warmly and enthusiastically engaging “Joe” in a protracted exchange.

As for “Joe” not asking to be famous, perhaps Senator McCain and Governor Palin should do “Joe” the courtesy of ceasing and desisting in making “Joe the plumber” a principal theme of campaign speeches. After all, it was Senator McCain who put “Joe” front and center on the mass media stage by featuring him in the final presidential debate of this campaign.

Finally, there are the accusations that the Obama campaign has been attacking poor ol’ “Joe.” Perhaps the Obama campaign has been attacking “Joe,” but I haven’t heard any such attacks coming from the Obama campaign or its surrogates. What little I know about “Joe” has come from the press, which naturally was curious about this “Joe” fellow after McCain made him famous. So, it appears that psychotic hallucinations once again trump reality among McCain and his supporters.

And just what are these “attacks”?

It turns out that “Joe the plumber” isn’t really a plumber.
The company “Joe” is “about to buy” doesn’t really make $250,000–270,000 a year (more like $180,000 a year).
In fact, “Joe” is nowhere near ready to purchase the company, and won’t be for some years yet—he hasn’t saved anywhere near enough money. (Talk about irony! Obama’s tax plan would greatly benefit “Joe,” as compared to McCain’s plan or current tax policies. Under Obama’s plan, it would be much easier for “Joe” to save the money he needs, and “Joe” would much sooner be able to realize his dream of buying the company.)
And it appears that “Joe” is just plain opposed to paying taxes at all, regardless of the tax rate.

What I’ve concluded from watching and listening to the exchange between “Joe” and Senator Obama is that “Joe” is one of the dimmer bulbs on the tree. “Joe” would benefit from Obama’s tax policy. The business “Joe” works for would benefit from Obama’s tax policy.

“Joe” doesn’t seem to have even the most basic understanding of taxes or small businesses. “Joe” asked Senator Obama about the tax repercussions of expanding the business—buying another truck, hiring more employees, etc.—“concerned” that such expansion would increase his tax liability. Buying another truck or hiring a few more employees are not the sorts of things that would increase “Joe’s” tax liability. As the owner of a small business, “Joe’s” tax rate would be determined by his after-expenses income. Furthermore, with Obama’s tax exemption on capital gains for small businesses, “Joe’s” business would almost certainly be hugely better off under Obama’s tax plan than McCain’s.

In sum, the “Joes” out there who support McCain are morons. I guess when the square root of one’s IQ is an imaginary number, it’s just prohibitively difficult to get past that race thing, or that intelligence thing, or that Democrat thing.