Thursday, October 30, 2008
McCain Campaign Confers Degree on (Doctor) Joe
It was only a matter of time before the Straight Talk Express would pull off the campaign trail and into the parking lot of a diploma mill, the better to give Sam-Joe-the-Plumber the certification that he's never had.
Apparently Joe has been traveling the highways of America in McCain's wienermobile, thrilling campaign aides and perhaps the candidates themselves with his down-home Ohio wisdom.
"Ah, here comes Joe the plumber from the Straight Talk Express now," gushed Nicole Wallace, one of Sarah Palin's shoppers-in-chief as Linda Wertheimer of NPR tried to pin her down on whether or not McCain really thought Obama was a socialist. "We've been amazed with his ideas..." she said before Wertheimer cut her off.
Poor Linda W. She was just trying to get the McCain campaign to admit that Obama was not going to run around rummaging through everyone's bank accounts (or mattresses, or change jars) hunting up cash to "redistribute" to the less fortunate, or as McCain and company like to imply, lazy black n' white people. She played a clip in which McCain acknowledged Obama's capitalist credentials, only to have Nicole continue to assert Obama's "known history" of wanting to "redistribute" wealth.
McCain himself seems buoyed by the possibility that a barrage of last-minute lies will do for him what he has been unable to do for himself: convince the electorate of his worthiness for the office. He has taken yet another page from the Bush-Cheney playbook: if you say a thing often enough you can force it to be perceived as true.
When I read the letter of an as yet undecided voter, asking those excellent ladies Margaret and Helen how to make up her mind, I flipped out, knowing that there are lots of citizens out there who haven't done the homework that goes with citizenship and are looking for someone to do the impossible: make up their minds for them.
It isn't as if there is a shortage of such folks, ready to do your thinking for you. It's just that given her lack of interest in what has been a very long campaign, given the many debates and interviews that have led us to this moment, all ignored by such a voter, the crap shoot of that vote just might not be all that enlightened. In the meantime Joe the plumber revels in his 15 minutes, entertaining the job that awaits him in the McCain administration.
No wonder Europeans think we're bonkers.
Apparently Joe has been traveling the highways of America in McCain's wienermobile, thrilling campaign aides and perhaps the candidates themselves with his down-home Ohio wisdom.
"Ah, here comes Joe the plumber from the Straight Talk Express now," gushed Nicole Wallace, one of Sarah Palin's shoppers-in-chief as Linda Wertheimer of NPR tried to pin her down on whether or not McCain really thought Obama was a socialist. "We've been amazed with his ideas..." she said before Wertheimer cut her off.
Poor Linda W. She was just trying to get the McCain campaign to admit that Obama was not going to run around rummaging through everyone's bank accounts (or mattresses, or change jars) hunting up cash to "redistribute" to the less fortunate, or as McCain and company like to imply, lazy black n' white people. She played a clip in which McCain acknowledged Obama's capitalist credentials, only to have Nicole continue to assert Obama's "known history" of wanting to "redistribute" wealth.
McCain himself seems buoyed by the possibility that a barrage of last-minute lies will do for him what he has been unable to do for himself: convince the electorate of his worthiness for the office. He has taken yet another page from the Bush-Cheney playbook: if you say a thing often enough you can force it to be perceived as true.
When I read the letter of an as yet undecided voter, asking those excellent ladies Margaret and Helen how to make up her mind, I flipped out, knowing that there are lots of citizens out there who haven't done the homework that goes with citizenship and are looking for someone to do the impossible: make up their minds for them.
It isn't as if there is a shortage of such folks, ready to do your thinking for you. It's just that given her lack of interest in what has been a very long campaign, given the many debates and interviews that have led us to this moment, all ignored by such a voter, the crap shoot of that vote just might not be all that enlightened. In the meantime Joe the plumber revels in his 15 minutes, entertaining the job that awaits him in the McCain administration.
No wonder Europeans think we're bonkers.
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Well, I read Margaret and Helen too. And found your comment and came on over for a visit. Maybe the IRS will dig their money out of Joe the Plumber now that he's a "celebrity." I happen to live in East Texas, fertile ground for religion (uh-oh) and fanatical Republicans. But so far my Obama/Biden sign sits undisturbed in my front yard. Oh, by the way, my husband is a doctor. And he's a Democrat too. See's the insurance industry's greed everyday as a psychiatrist. And knows better than most that something has got to change.
Brenda
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Brenda
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