An Ordinary Joe

Joe Wurzelbacher looks like the guy who plays third base at a Labor Day softball game, but he got a taste of political hardball this time. It seems that without any hostile intent, he threw Presidential Nominee Barack Obama a brush back curve and brought the Senator's team out of the dugout with bats in their hands.

Wurzelbacher is the ambitious plumber who wants to buy his own business, and whom Sen. Obama told he'd have to "share the wealth" (Propaganda alert: Euphemism--"Sharing the wealth" sounds so much less intrusive and punitive than "redistributing" it.) a terrific slip for the Presidential front-runner. Up to that point the Senator had contended that small businesses would be protected, and that all the little guys would get tax breaks, but in a moment of unfortunate candor, Sen. Obama admitted this would-be small businessman would have his wealth "shared out," which is to say, redistributed. Without time to spin his words, the Senator just blurted out the truth, which in his case is definitely a strike.


In the days that followed, Obama's team announced to the public that Wurzelbacher isn't a licensed plumber, that he owes the IRS back taxes, that he probably really isn't ready to buy that business anyway and that he doesn't make enough money to worry about the Obama Tax Plan, so he's just a trouble-maker after all. The Senator himself said to a rally, "Come on. How many $250,000 a year plumbers do you know?" (Fallacy alert: Red herring. the number of plumbers who make $250,000/year has no bearing on the impact of Obama's Tax Plan on small businesses. He's is trying to distract us.) There are, of course, defenses for each of these charges. As an employee, Wurzelbacher doesn't need to hold his own license. He works under the license of his boss. Many of us owe the IRS back taxes. If we don't have enough taxes withheld during a tax year (which is actually a better plan than giving the government a one-year interest-free loan), we may suddenly discover on April 15th that we owe the IRS a significant sum of money. There is even an automatic payment plan any taxpayer can apply for in order to pay off the deficit. The idea that Wurzelbach doesn't yet own the business and therefore shouldn't even be asking about the Tax Plan ignores the native ambition and high hopes of the American entrepreneur, or even the would-be entrepreneur. As Peter Stone wrote in his play 1776, most Americans would rather preserve the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. Wurzelbacher has even been falsely accused of being a Republican plant, set up to trap the Senator, even though it was Obama who walked into Wurzelbacher's front yard. All of this, however, is entirely irrelevant.

And for the Obama Team, that's just the point. If Joe the Plumber can be made the focus of the discussion, and if he can be made to appear as an unreliable, or unworthy, or unsympathetic character, then the spotlight can be taken off Sen. Obama and his gaff. (Fallacy alert: Ad hominem)This is the essence of the ad hominem argument, to attack the man and thereby draw attention away from the argument. No one has denied that Sen. Obama want to redistribute the wealth created by successful workers, but by tarnishing the image of Joe Wurzelbacher, the Obama Team hopes to make people forget the suddenly public truth about the Tax Plan. It's a classic dodge.

It's also, as old time Democrat pollster Pat Caudell says, "Nixonian." Through it all though, Joe the Plumber has been a paragon of good-sportsmanship. He hasn't complained in the least, but he has made a very disturbing observation. To one interviewer this week he said, "When you can't ask a question of our leaders anymore, that gets scary." And it's still the first inning.