Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Wow! Talk about “Politics of destruction” … The Clinton Crime Machine apparently’s got nuttin’ on the Hussein media posse.

Our buddy Ace Of Spades has ‘inside’ poop on a bit of a side fallout on this:

Congratulations, Obama!: Media’s Savaging of Joe the Plumber Causes Witness to Ayers-Obama Relationship to Get Cold Feet

Yeah … perfect. Fucking “Sieg Heil” …

I’m Not A Plumber, But I Play One On TV

by SEAN J. MILLER - (National Journal)

When Barack Obama and Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (aka Joe The Plumber) met recently in Ohio, the two got to talking about small businesses. Wurzelbacher told the senator he’s a “plumber” and he’s looking to buy a company. Obama asked how long he’d been a plumber. “Fifteen years,” Wurzelbacher replied.

Oh, really?

Wurzelbacher registered as an apprentice with the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council in November 2003, according to Dennis Evans, spokesman with the Department of Job and Family Services. Records show his training, which was sponsored by A & W Newell Co. of Toledo, should have wrapped last year.

“We don’t have a record of completion,” Evans said. “All we know is that he registered in the program and has gone through to the point where we should have record of completion, but we don’t.”

And that’s not the only record that’s missing from Wurzelbacher’s file. He doesn’t have a plumbing license required by the city of Toledo to practice, according to a staffer with the Toledo Division of Building Inspection. Wurzelbacher, who now works for Newell Plumbing & Heating Co., said the owner, Al Newell, has a plumbing license and that “because he works for someone else, he doesn’t need a license.”

But even that’s not true, according to the Toledo Division of Building Inspection. Wurzelbacher can’t legally do plumbing work without a license, regardless of his boss’s certification.

A staff person with the Toledo Division of Building Inspection told On Call this afternoon that her division will contact Wurzelbacher to notify him that he can’t work without a license.

“We’re trying to track him down,” she said.

In the meantime, the Democrat-friendly local plumbers’ union is fuming.

“He has no license whatsoever with the city of Toledo,” said Tom Joseph, the business manager for Local Union 50 of the Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics, which has endorsed Obama. “He has no license in the state of Ohio. He has no contractor’s license in the state of Ohio. He is not a plumber. He works for a plumber.”

What about Wurzelbacher’s claim that he is “gettin’ ready to buy a company that makes about two hundred and fifty, two hundred and seventy, two hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year” … ? Wurzelbacher told reporters that when he was hired by Newell six years ago “the possibility of him eventually buying the company was discussed during his job interview.”

According to Joseph, Newell Plumbing & Heating is far from a $250K-a-year operation. Newell is running “a two-man shop,” he said. “This is not a thriving business.”

Isn’t there a chance it could be worth $250K? “Oh, God no,” Joseph said. “Maybe if he sells him the house, the garage.” He explained that the address for the business “is where the man lives at.”

“The real Joe Plumbers are for Barack,” Joseph added.

The Press, The Plumber And Liberal Poster Boy

By K. Daniel Glover - (Eyeblast Blog)

With 15 minutes of fame comes 15 hours of “gotcha” scrutiny — especially if you’re a voter who has dared to criticize Barack Obama, the liberal media’s Chosen One for president.

Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher has had his 15 minutes of fame, capping it off with an unplanned appearance as the poster boy of populist tax policy in last night’s presidential debate. So now it’s time for the press to turn its sights on him not as a human-interest story but as an investigative subject.

Jonathan Martin of The Politico was among the first out of the gate, with blog posts noting that Wurzelbacher, affectionately known by most of America as “Joe The Plumber,” has a tax lien against him and doesn’t have a plumber’s license. Martin conveniently forgot to mention that the law doesn’t require one.) Bloomberg also has a story on the tax lien, and AP and The Washington Post did their part to make a story out of the “unlicensed” non-story.

Liberal bloggers are swarming and smearing, too.

Expect more of the same over coming days. In fact, don’t be surprised if all of those investigative reporters sent to Alaska after John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate suddenly get reassigned to the plumber beat in flyover country. Joe The Plumber must be discredited at all costs!

The impulse to learn more about Wurzelbacher is perfectly normal. Readers and viewers are no doubt want to know more about the man now that he is all over the news. I know I do. And speaking as a journalist, let me add that reporters should be curious enough to do some basic background research.

But why is it that political reporters only get curious when a conservative Joe America storms onto the scene? Why aren’t they just as curious when liberals trot out, say, a 12-year-old boy to give a national radio address?

It has been almost a year to the day since journalists dropped the ball on telling America more about Graeme Frost, the boy who made the case for sinking billions of dollars more into the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. But when Michelle Malkin and other curious conservative bloggers did the legwork the press wouldn’t, they earned the scorn of their mainstream colleagues.

This time around, with Joe The Plumber as their target, the MSM is coming out with guns blazing. Maybe they should spend more time telling the bigger story about Wurzelbacher — that he managed to get Obama on the public record as favoring a socialistic redistribution of wealth.