NYT’s Timothy Egan calls Joe the Plumber “no good as a citizen”

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Talk about a strange personal vendetta by the media…. Maureen Dowd goes on vacation, and sitting in for her is a petty and/or menopausal Timothy Egan, lashing out at Joe the Plumber for having the audacity to write a book.

Huh?

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?

I didn’t think so. And I don’t want you writing books. Not when too many good novelists remain unpublished. Not when too many extraordinary histories remain unread. Not when too many riveting memoirs are kicked back at authors after 10 years of toil. Not when voices in Iran, North Korea or China struggle to get past a censor’s gate.

I’m not sure why Egan’s got a problem with American entrepreneurialship, but I daresay Joe Wurzelbacher will not be the first citizen to cash in on his reluctant public 15 minutes of fame. Gennifer Flowers did well with Passion and Betrayal about her affair with Bill Clinton. Anita Hill has done an effective job changing from law professor to authoress… all starting with her sexual harrassment accusations against Justice Clarence Thomas. No doubt they have had ghost writers in tow.

****************UPDATE*******************

Joe indeed does credit his ghost writer, Thomas N. Tabbock. H/T to Newsbusters’ Warner Todd Huston for the extra details on this same op-ed.

****************END UPDATE*******************

It can be said that if you sleep with the right people, not only publishers, but all of Hollywood will kneel at your feet for the rights to a juicy movie of scandal. At least Joe’s book isn’t founded on a leap to 15 minutes of fame based on sexual interactions with a famous partner….

Egan gives a pass to Obama, another non-writer. Tho the President-elect penned nothing as editor of the Harvard Law Review, he felt the need to write (or perhaps by an uncredited Bill Ayers ghost writer) a couple of autobiographical books quite early in his life. Whether BHO had won the nomination or not, his choice to be a candidate (whether deliberately or not) placed him in the position to gain financially. His candidacy propelled the sales of his books – going from $1 mil income in 2006 to $4.2 million in 2007.

But Egan – ready and willing to give a pass to other non-writers who’ve capitalized on their experiences – isn’t content to whine merely about Joe’s career change. He also assails him on his owed back taxes… labeling him “no good as a citizen”.

Joe, a k a Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, was no good as a citizen, having failed to pay his full share of taxes, no good as a plumber, not being fully credentialed, and not even any good as a faux American icon. Who could forget poor John McCain at his most befuddled, calling out for his working-class surrogate on a day when Joe stiffed him.

With a résumé full of failure, he now thinks he can join the profession of Mark Twain, George Orwell and Joan Didion.

Egan, like too may journalists, hasn’t done his homework and figured out that plumbers can plumb in Ohio without licenses. Since deficient and fraudulent info is common in the journalism profession nowadays, who can be surprised.

Joe, who also pays child support, has a lien for owing Ohio approx $1200 in income tax. Who knows his budget vs income. But at least he placed priority on taking care of the child support over Uncle Sam.

But to seize on owing taxes as the foundation of his personal assault on Joe’s character?? Woof…

This “no good as a citizen” status places him with some illustrious company who’ve also been (or are currently in) the same boat… i.e. Walmart, Fat Joe, New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter, Al Franken, Al Sharpton, and…. ta da… ACORN.

Where’s the outrage and personal assaults there, Mr. Egan? Oh wait… perhaps they agree with you politically. Obviously Egan’s disdain is reserved for a special class of American citizen of a particular political flavor.

What Egan misses is that, with a book deal, Joe’s going to become not only a model citizen by paying his arrears taxes – with interest – from the proceeds, but step up into a new tax bracket and easily slide over the top of Obama’s every morphing threshhold of “rich”.

Perhaps Egan is too consumed with envy to see the bright side, eh?

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Interesting: Egan says ” I don’t want you[Joe the Plumber] writing books.”

What would he say if someone on our side said we didn’t want him writing in the New York Times?

He’d be screaming about Nazis, fascists, Guantanamo Bay and the threat that we posed to HIS civil liberties.

And yet… When the left censors speech, such as shouting down speakers or trashing people like Joe the Plumber they don’t see that they are doing exactly what they falsely accuse us of doing.

I’ve got a companion piece to go along with this if I can stop procrastinating on this beautiful sunny fall day. The beach was very nice today.

oh the enlightened ones are truelly retarded. joe the plumber can right anything he wants as can any of us. do we need his permission to write anything, don’t think so. bet he really would like to be on his knees for obama, and kiss his ring. they act like joe did something wrong, he did not, but the dems in power in his state most certainly did and they are trying to blame him for their lack of morals and honesty.

Does it matter that I know who Joe the Plumber is, but I have never before the current hour (And this, the second blog article) heard of Timothy Eagan?

Or that there is a good chance that I will read Joe’s book, but virtually no chance I will ever read Timmy’s screed?

*shrug*

Doesn’t look like anything I am likely to have read.

Mata: Obviously the man (Egan) has an overblown opinion of himself though actually has a psychologically weak self image shown in the need to cut down others and that ploy is nothing but a prop to unconsciously make himself look better in his own eyes as he goes to sleep at night saying “Man,I socked it to him!”

Psychobabble aside. Egan is simply one of a myriad of uppity Left wingers whose self serving arrogance has vaulted mightily (if thats possible)since Obama won the election. Prepare to hear this crap for at least the next four years.

As a side, I do believe I heard that Joe the Plumber did pay off his income taxes owed. I’ve also seen other people who do contract work explain how this isn’t exactly an uncommon thing among contractors. You know, waiting to be paid for their work in order to make their own payments on things.

Buzz: Trust me that’s the case. I am a General Contractor (Architect/Engineer). Doing work for private parties is generally ‘walking on nails’ work at best as far as collecting.

Envy is a powerful, and dangerous, thing in the minds of a liberal. When, or will, the NYSlimes find someone with a brain to write for their third grade level publication/bird cage liner?

Mata – I forgot, neo-cons and neo-nazi’s are anti civil liberty, anti-Constitution. Joe, the Plumber’s Helper, is the poor, ignorant guy used to start one of the many stupid, irrelevant, distorted convolutions of truth that comprised McCain and Palin’s campaign “platform”. One thing they knew for sure was that their “base” was incapable of analytical thought, so everything had to be conveyed in 1-4 word soundbites that “the base” could repeat without trying to think. “Joe the Plumber”, “Spread the Wealth” really had alot of dumb, poor people going. They would never know that Obama just wanted the rich to pay the same 35% in income taxes the middle class was paying (instead of the 15% to nothing they currently pay), because that meant processing more than 4 words. Besides, McCain wanted to give himself and his rich friends new tax breaks and getting the rabidly devoted GOP base to glomb onto the Joe The Plumber soundbite was the easiest way to get them to vote agains’t their own best interests. Again. I will never understand how anybody who gives a damn about this country and what our fighting men have given their lives to protect, would even consider giving over their God given Constitutional rights to some semi-literate, power hungry fascist, but I see she’s the new “pick” of the GOP. Before it’s too late, here is a new soundbite for you to think about: “Constitution and Religious Freedom”.

NYT’s Timothy Egan calls Joe the Plumber “no good as a citizen”

Yeah, I’ll bet he’s one of those people that recklessly reveals national secrets – endangering many lives just to spite Bush. Oh, no, wait. Those would be the people Egan works for.

Like Larry, I never heard of Egan before. I get the feeling I wasn’t missing much.

It’s hard to understand that you still have nazis in america.

What really is Egan’s point? Plumbers need books to read. Pipe down Egan. plumbers need to vent too.

Glo take your meds and STHU. You are nothing but the atypical leftist hypocrite and liar as Mata proved. We are ignorant? Ha! Project much moonbat?

I know Mata, that’s why I didn’t go into detail refuting his/her insane post.

No, I didn’t expect right wing idiots to listen to the truth, when lies and BS bring them so much comfort. Have you ever considered opening a newspaper? Actually reading and “analyzing” the information instead of getting all you know from propaganda machines like FOX News? No, I guess not. Your messiah Dubya, and his brain Cheney, looted the country, and it will take years to recover our stability. To them, American’s and America’s resources were merely expendable collateral to make a buck. No consideration at all for the lives it cost to profit Halliburton by waging an unnecessary war in Iraq. Bush’s final dishonorable “contribution” is to lift standards for the amount of pollution industry can dump into our rivers and streams, (including lead, known to cause brain damage in children in small amounts), a real threat to our drinking water and clean air. Mostly, this kick in the a*ss will effect those in the red states, but I still feel sorry for the children and smart people who live in those states. I’m sure this wasn’t mentioned on BS24/7 FOX, so I guess you don’t know it and never will.

Barack Obama is like breath of fresh air, filling his cabinet with sucessful people from the socially and financially stable Clinton era. While it will take years to repair enough of the damage caused by 8 years of incompetence and greed at the hands of Dubya to see it, citizens will eventually reap the benefits of having intelligent, knowledgeable people in key government positions. Dumb people had their chance and nearly destroyed the country. The CHANGE is that we don’t have to put up with their blatant ignorance anymore.

Glo continues to spew hate and has some nerve to suggest Obama is like a breath of fresh air.

If that’s true, he’ll likely toss Glo’s bile under the bus along with the rest of the left.

What’s a matter Glo? You been drinking lead again?

P.S. When it comes to being informed, surveys show conservatives lead the pack. Many Obama voters don’t even know which party controls congress.

Glo reminds me of an old Kenny Rogers tune, something about “welling up inside me.” Can’t remember what song it was, whatever, someone will know what it was. The point, after eight years of *believing all the garbage she just posted* she now can’t handle anyone disagreeing with the manchild, time to unleash. Perhaps she might want to think about how we felt having to deal with the garbage tossed at the President all those years. It’s Glo’s turn now, enjoy it honey!

Damn!!!! A genuine brain-washed zombie. A fellow who knows deep in his heart that Obama being elected means flowers will bloom in winter, the skies will be clear with fresh air and the unicorns will come out of hiding because they know that Obama will protect them, There will be peace everywhere because Obama’s golden voice will make it so. The world willl be green, green, green. The oceans will cease to rise and Obama will be there to pay your mortgages and fill up your gas tank. Our enemies will lay down their guns and other arms because Obama will convince them of the errors of their ways. There will be peace everywhere and even the Europeans and the radical islamists will be swayed by his rhetoric.

What do YOU watch, gullible? PBS, NPR, the alphabets and the NYT? Say, are you the guy from California who said liberals are just plain smarter than republicans. A generalization that truly shows both yours and his ignorance. And how does Haliburton come into any conversation. I would have thought even you dumb liberals would have given up on this canard. No other contractors wanted to go to Iraq. Hell, we couldn’t even get the diplomatic corps to go. Look it up. We received no oil from Iraq. All their sales went to other countries that Iraq had contracts for before the war. Get a life, buddy. The one you have is a dead ender.

Oh well. Talking to a liberal is like beating your head against a brick wall and just as profitable.

Glo, it is time for you to go to bed. Maybe tomorrow when all the vapors will have vanished, you will see clearly. A good night sleep will do you good.

@Craig:

Good idea Craig, a lullabye for Glo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVr4jhNMeeY

Egan? Never heard of him. As far as the Pulitzer Prize, its value and meaning were lost many years ago. It has just become another political ‘award’.

Joe the Plumber: “McCain appalled me.”

Wow. Perhaps Joe’s not a good citizen after all?

Again, sanjay takes a hatchet and lops off the best part of the article. I doubt that many in here will disagree with what Joe the Plumber said especially about Obama and Palin. Most of us were also on the same page with JTP in regards to McCain.

From sanjay’s source:

“Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen.”

“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Asked why he didn’t leave McCain’s campaign if he was “appalled” by the candidate, Wurzelbacher said, “honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.”

While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain during the interview, he had nothing but praise for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said.”

…but yet, regarding McCain: Joe felt “dirty” around McCain’s campaign, was “angry” at McCain, and “appalled” and “scared” by him. –that’s what Joe said:

“”I honestly felt even more dirty after I had been on the campaign trail and seen some things that take place. It was scary, man,” Wurzelbacher said. He told Beck he asked McCain “some pretty direct questions” about the bailout, and wasn’t pleased with the response. “They appalled me, absolutely. You know, I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”

Let’s just remember, while Obama “scares [him] even more”, McCain still “scares” him, and “McCain is the lesser of two evils”, according to Joe.

I’d bet people here and on other conservative blogs would/have been banned for saying such things.

“sanjay’s” drooling says a lot more about sanjay that it does anybody else.

Joe the Plumber speaks for several of us, no doubt about it.

And I would say that “Joe the Plumber is an outstanding, high pricipaled citizen” is a lot closer to the mark.

I voted for McCain not because he said much I could agree with except (Governor Palin, would you be my Vice Presidnt?”, but because I thought (a sKoe did) that a President ClintonBushCarterNixon would do great harm.

About “sanhay”, I say “Let us stop feeding the troll”>

That should of course say: ‘About “sanjay”, I say “Let us stop feeding the troll”.

Too much blood in the coffee stream.

Apparently you haven’t paid much attention to what was said about McCain and you bet, McCain is the lesser of two evils. I post on conservative blogs, the majority of conservatives would agree with JTP without any fear of being banned. Apparently, you spend too much time on lib sites, banning posters for posting dissenting opinions is a Kos/firedoglake/lib thing.

I understand Joe the Plumber is considering a run for Congress, I’d trade any Illinois democrat for him, too bad he lives in Ohio.

“Most of us were also on the same page with JTP in regards to McCain.”

I think you are a party of one on this blog, or perhaps a few. I don’t recalled any of the authors of this blog stating McCain ‘scared’ them, or ‘appalled’ them, or they felt ‘dirty’ around McCain or that he was ‘a lesser evil’ to Obama; they defended McCain at almost every turn. You simply refuse to acknowledge the degree to which JTP was repulsed by McCain.

I’d say you are more affiliated with the likes of Coulter, Limbaugh, Dobson, and so on.

How cute! The troll can’t imagine anybody being able to express an opinion without following a script!

I don’t think I have ever expressed an opinion about McCain without saying I would vote for hime because I thought (perhaps naively, but that is a not screed) that he would do the least harm.

It also now appears that we would have heard mopre from Palin than we will from whatzizname.

Sanjay, check out the McCain archives, note the dummy that posted the #8 comment:

How Sarah Palin Almost Saved The Campaign

The likes of Al Franken, Maxine Waters and Randi Rhodes was saying?