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Go Home Joe The Plumber Goes To The Holy Land

THE PLANK JANUARY 12, 2009

Joe The Plumber Goes To The Holy Land

BY EVE FAIRBANKS

I dunno, Mike. You sure this isn't the photo of the day?

Yes, that's Joe the Plumber in Israel, on assignment from the major conservative media outlet PajamasMedia to cover the war in Gaza. (One article posted on PajamasMedia to explain Joe's role compares him to Stephen Crane.) Well, at least I hope this means PajamasMedia is no longer allowed to bellyache that Caroline Kennedy is an "undeserving" opportunist who "has seen her chance and reluctantly decided to take it."

A few nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Wurzelbacher's reporting:

"I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting [on war]," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "You know, war is hell." ... 

In his first day as a reporter, Wurzelbacher described the hardships of daily life in the southern Israeli town of Sderot. “I’m sure they’re taking quick showers, I know I would,” Wurzelbacher said. Wurzelbacher said he thought Israel should have attacked Gaza sooner.
He told a group of reporters that he was a “peace-loving man,” but that
"when someone hits me, I'm going to unload on the boy.”

--Eve Fairbanks

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26 comments

Oh, Eve, Mike's photo is small game--that's why it's "Photo of the Day".  The picture you have linked to, OTOH, is more like the "Picture of the Decade".  

- dylanposer

January 12, 2009 at 2:21pm

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Ok, he is an idiot, but at least his instincts about Israel are correct. To be honest, I have no problem with him wringing all the money he can out of this. He ain't hurting anyone since no one anywhere takes him seriously, pajamasmedia is just using him to increase traffic.

- blackton

January 12, 2009 at 2:32pm

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Joe the Plumber, professional dumb-ass

- satyendra

January 12, 2009 at 2:34pm

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Aaaaand it's become a serious of occupationally-themed children's books.  Joe The Plumber Reports on Gaza!  Joe The Plumber Flies A Plane!  Joe The Plumber Teaches The Cha-Cha!  Your young ones will delight as they follow the wacky escapades of this intrepid Everyman while learning about professions from plumber to war correspondent in the world's most intractable centuries-old blood feud!

- adaglas

January 12, 2009 at 2:34pm

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I spent my morning at the offices of GlobalPost , a new website devoted to international news, which

- Anonymous

January 12, 2009 at 2:40pm

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This guy is a grade-A moron. The media should be "abolished" from reporting on wars? What's more, is he says that while he is there as a member of the media (God help us) REPORTING ON WAR!!!!

- MichLib

January 12, 2009 at 2:54pm

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Joe the Plumber was never (ever) a real plumber.  [He is not a licensed plumber, and never worked as one.]  So maybe he is showing his true identity now??

- gregorybutn

January 12, 2009 at 3:08pm

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I thought Joe the Plumber was guest posting on The Spine.

- ndmackenzie

January 12, 2009 at 3:16pm

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Looks to me like Joe is going to be paying more taxes this year.

- csmiller

January 12, 2009 at 3:16pm

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There will probably be less excrescence deposited in those port-o-johns pictured in Crowley's post than in one of the reports from the man pictured in Fairbanks' post.  Photo of the Day decision: Advantage - Fairbanks.  

- Lityerses

January 12, 2009 at 3:22pm

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I dunno. It may be a stunt by pajamasmedia, but given the level of accuracy and ethics exhibited by the "professionals" (such as calling terrorists "militants"), you would think that the main American news outlets are hellbent on making Joe look good.

- nbarry

January 12, 2009 at 3:43pm

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Quit complaining, you guys.  If Obama hadn't won the election Joe would be the next Commerce Secretary, at least.  

- tj_emerson

January 12, 2009 at 3:47pm

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nbarry, if you're referring to those firing rockets at Israel from Gaza, then militants is just as accurate a description as terrorists is.

- MichLib

January 12, 2009 at 3:48pm

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They are comparing him to Stephen Crane, eh?  I wasn't expecting that.  But it does hold out the promise of some potentially immortal classics from Joe, for example: "The Red Badge of Bluster," in which the protagonist passes through a media firestorm and obtains a new sense of resentful white American masculinity; "The Open Drain," in which Joe and a group of colleagues are trapped for days in a house flooded by an unlicensed plumber; and possibly even "Maggie:  A Girl of the Malls" in which the Obama stimulus package ends up giving an innocent young girl who works at the local DQ a bigger tax break than Joe after he gets his pajamasmedia check.

- ironyroad

January 12, 2009 at 4:14pm

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"...I’m not a person that runs from things, but when it’s a missile, you run.”

I have to wonder if the media is picking his nits, or if everything else he said was just as brilliant...

Given that his solution for all the biased media coverage of this conflict is to think media should be banned from covering the war, I'm thinking he and Palin would be a 2012 dream ticket...

- GSpinks

January 12, 2009 at 4:25pm

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blackton writes, "He is an idiot, but at least his instincts about Israel are correct."

OK, I agree. But. When an actual idiot just happen to agree with me, my reaction is not, "Well, at least his instincts about X are correct." My reaction is, "From an empirical perspective, this means that I am probably wrong about X." Because the truth is, history will prove all of us wrong about almost everything we believe to be true, such that the one good thing about mortality is that we do not have to suffer the indignity of living long enough to learn just how wrong we are about everything. So when a known idiot agrees with one, that's not the time to praise him for getting something right. That's the time to reconsider how one arrived at one's conclusions to make sure one didn't arrive there by the same path of "reasoning" as the idiot.

- rhubarbs

January 12, 2009 at 4:26pm

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Rhubarbs: Your comment is spot on. When major fools agree with me, I too reexamine my conclusions and the reasoning process that led me to .

- liberal reformer

January 12, 2009 at 4:43pm

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Next, Joe the Soldier.  Joe, your country truly needs you.  We need a brave man to walk the mine fileds of Iraq and Afganistan for a clear path through.  You can stop for picnics while working.

- mghogwild

January 12, 2009 at 5:15pm

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Rhubs,

Hilarious.  Dangerous theory though:  I don't agree with Rick Warren, but I am not about to lambast the man for his concern about AIDS in Africa, and then turn away from focusing my concern on that horrible, horrible pandemic.  The best way to point out one's foolishness is probably when you are in bed with that person and not lobbing rhetorical stones at him/her from across the fence.  

- dylanposer

January 12, 2009 at 5:33pm

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I like that Joe the soldier idea Hog.

- The Ignorant Populist

January 12, 2009 at 5:55pm

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The greatest fool of all is the one incapable of listening.  This guy is Exhibit A, or maybe B after Bush.

- cspencef

January 12, 2009 at 9:18pm

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so do the pajama party people mean that J the P is akin to Crane being an alcoholic and perpetually unreliable correspondent?

- gflibCDL

January 12, 2009 at 10:51pm

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"I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting [on war]," Can someone--"you know"--"like" remind why Wurzelbacher traveled to Israel and Gaza.

"I know I would"[take quick showers]. Isn't the plumber there to, "you know," report? Why doesn't he ask a few Israelis if they are taking quick showers and then "like" report back.

- tec619

January 12, 2009 at 11:01pm

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tec619 writes:

-- Why doesn't he ask a few Israelis if they are taking quick showers and then "like" report back.

Why doesn't he ask a few Palestinians if they are getting showered in white phosphorus and then "like" report back.

www.timesonline.co.uk/.../article5447590.ece

- ndmackenzie

January 12, 2009 at 11:51pm

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Caption: Joe the Plumber poses with the wreckage of John McCain's Presidential campaign smoking on the far side of the hill.

- JEFF FREY

January 13, 2009 at 12:43am

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ndmckenzie:  "Why doesn't he ask a few Palestinians if they are getting showered in white phosphorus and then "like" report back."

Even more, as a "real" American who by his own statements doesn't go in for fuzzy compromises of any kind, why doesn't he pop over to Gaza and encourage Palestinians even further into an apocalyptic blind alley in which every possible interim solution is rejected in favor of an absolute victory that will never happen.

- ironyroad

January 13, 2009 at 1:34am

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