The Helter Skelter Media
This is what happens when a biased media gets thrown off narrative. We saw it when Senator McCain chose Governor Palin as his running mate, and we’re seeing it now with Joe Wurzelbacher. We now know more about Joe the Plumber than we do about Senator Obama. We know more about his affiliations, his private life, even his voting record. All because he asked Senator Obama a question and the senator answered in a way that will cost him a couple of votes.
He asked a question, and now the Washington Post is investigating him. ABC News is investigating him. MSNBC is investigating him. The New York Times is investigating him. And while they’re doing more to vet Joe than they’ve done to vet Senator Obama, they’re still screwing up. He’s not registered to vote. He’s not a licensed plumber. His father’s brother’s son’s wife is related to rich people. Except, oh, yes, he is registered to vote, but the government screwed up his last name (that gives me confidence in government programs). The rest may or may not be true, but that isn’t the point. They’re trying frantically to attach a narrative to Joe the Plumber that serves their candidate rather than the kind of people Joe represents.
Too bad he doesn’t hire ACORN and doesn’t accept money from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Then he’d have all the privacy he needs.
Final note. One of the strange things about this election is how it’s hitting minor players in a bit of fiction I wrote for a game. The fiction involves the Summit—Sammy Davis, Jr. and Frank Sinatra—as the behind-the-scenes leaders of a ragtag team of special agents against an interdimensional conspiracy of Burroughsian bugs called the Insect Mesh. It takes place in 1955 and 1969; and in 1969 one of the groups manipulated by the Insect Mesh are that lovable nailbombing offshoot of the SDS, the Weathermen. Bernadine Dohrn makes an appearance, and Bill Ayers’s bombs do as well. I was a little surprised to see their names hit the news just as I started getting ready to publish the game.
Now Sammy Davis, Jr. is hitting the news, too. I have no idea what goes on in the mind of Joe the Plumber, but comparing anyone to Sammy Davis, Jr. is not racist. Davis was a pioneering entertainer and a man of strong convictions. If Senator Obama had half the courage and principle of Davis, he wouldn’t be falling in the polls right now.
- Joe the Plumber: Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher
- “Don’t Spread My Wealth Spread My Work Ethic.”
- All Joe the Plumber, all the time
- Learn to quote Sammy Davis Jr., Joe: “Questioning Senator Obama has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average plumber could never hope to get insulted.”
- After Targeting Joe the Plumber, Obamabots Pledge To Expose Scandals of Guy in Rockwell’s ‘Four Freedoms’ Painting
- “Make sure that anyone else who ever wants to skeptically question Barack Obama knows that every last bit of their dirty laundry will be aired for all the world to see. Bristol Palin, Trig Palin, hey, it’s all fair game. They’ve got to make an example of them. Show them that this sort of dangerous speech won’t be allowed in the New America.”
- What we can learn from the Joe the Plumber episode
- “Don’t ask questions. Don’t check the records of people running for political office, but do check the records of those who dare violate Rule #1. No dissent will be tolerated. Our political and media masters have spoken.”
- Ohio official admits Wurzelbacher search went farther than she first stated
- “The entire episode seems rather Orwellian. Joe the Plumber has the temerity to ask a question of Barack Obama, only after Obama approached Joe. For this crime of sudden notoriety—and because Obama gave an embarrassing answer that has plagued him for weeks—Jones-Kelley ran several checks to see whether she could have him arrested.”
- Ohio Officials Lied About The Reason For Checking Joe The Plumber’s Records
- ‘Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. ‘I’ve never done that before, I don’t know of anybody in my office who does that and I don’t remember anyone ever doing that,’ she said today.”
- Helter Skelter
- “There are things known and things unknown. In between are the doors.”
- Sammy Davis, Jr. at Wikipedia
- “After he achieved superstar success, Davis refused to work at venues which would practice racial segregation. His demands eventually led to the integration of Miami Beach nightclubs and Las Vegas casinos. Davis was particularly proud of this accomplishment.”
More deception
- There will be deception
- As their world falls apart, media liars will get better at lying.
- The coming crisis
- We know it. We just don’t know what it is yet.
- Media misdirection
- What does it matter when major news organizations try to rewrite history through omission and misdirection?
- Obama campaign skirts campaign finance law
- I expected the New York Times to be silent on the illegal donations that the Obama 2008 campaign encourages. I should have known better: they’re trying to cover for the campaign. But the bigger issue is that laws that don’t get enforced are counterproductive; they encourage dishonesty and lawlessness.
- Paranoid Times
- “On newspaper articles words dance. Reality and unreality collide on such a fundamental level that each becomes the other and anything is possible.”
- 19 more pages with the topic deception, and other related pages
More Joe the Plumber
- Fighting for the American Dream
- Joe the Plumber writes about his experiences at the center of one of the most vicious smear campaigns in recent memory.
More presidential elections
- Nothing to fear but a brokered convention
- The reason someone smart would want a brokered convention is that it’s exciting, and it means media coverage, and even more, it means unfiltered media coverage.
- If I were running for president…
- I’d make heavy use of short videos, and I’d record everything I did with the media.
- Fighting for the American Dream
- Joe the Plumber writes about his experiences at the center of one of the most vicious smear campaigns in recent memory.
- McCain sees the light: campaign finance reform dead
- Now, will he introduce bills to repeal those laws?
- Vote on performance, not promises
- If you’re disappointed that President Obama is the same wheeler-dealer he was when he was a Senator, take it as a lesson for future elections: vote performance and record, not promises.
- 21 more pages with the topic presidential elections, and other related pages
Update: two new links about Ohio official’s illegally searching Wurzelbacher’s records.