Just a few days ago, poor Joe Wurzelbacher was an anonymous, middle-class workingman who aspired to buy the plumbing company for which he’s worked for the past six years.
But then he drew from Barack Obama the startling admission that the Democratic presidential candidate wants to raise taxes so he can “spread the wealth around.”
And when John McCain reminded the nation of Obama’s confession time after time during Wednesday night’s debate, Democrats simply could not let Joe the Plumber go unpunished.
Yesterday, Wurzelbacher not only found himself under vicious personal attack from the far-left crazies in the blogosphere, he also had to endure uninformed insults from Obama’s running-mate, Sen. Joe Biden – who essentially portrayed Joe the Plumber as a greed-crazed plutocrat.
“I don’t have any Joe the Plumbers in my neighborhood who make $250,000 a year and are worried,” he said.
No doubt – given that homes go for $1 million and more in Biden’s tony Delaware nabe.
Anyway, the self-described man of the people has his facts all wrong.
Again.
Joe the Plumber doesn’t “make $250,000 a year,” as Biden charged.
And he never claimed to.
As he told Obama, what he wants to do is buy a multi-employee company whose annual income is $250,000 to $280,000; Wurzelbacher’s take would be considerably less.
In fact, Joe the Plumber made all of $40,000 in 2006.
We know this, because newspapers, TV networks and bloggers have been chasing public records to find out every scrap of info possible in order to discredit poor Joe.
They looked through his divorce case, discovered a $1,100 tax lien from last December, debated whether or not he’s working illegally since he doesn’t have a plumber’s license, got the head of a pro-Obama plumbers union to denounce him as “disreputable” and questioned whether he’s even registered to vote.
Let’s be clear, here, for the stakes are very high.
Barack Obama let slip a stunning admission: His heretofore opaque tax plan is in fact an income-redistribution program – or, as he put it, a vehicle to “spread the wealth around.”
And for Obama’s mistake, Wurzelbacher must be made to pay – with Joe Biden leading the charge.
Americans may indeed want change, but we must wonder whether this is the sort of change they really seek.