Joe Wurzelbacher didn’t give a speech or make a commercial. He asked a question. He stood on a rope line, and Obama picked him to ask it. The Tanning-Bed Media seems to feel that they have a duty to expose every last part of Wurzelbacher’s life, but that asking Obama to explain his political partnerships with Tony Rezko and William Ayers, and his long friendship and financial support of rabid demagogues Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger, are not just out of bounds but downright racist.

So what have we learned from this episode?

1. Thou shalt not offend The One by asking him a question. Of any kind.

2. Anyone who questions The One will have to undergo a public pillorying of a kind unseen since the Red Scare, or perhaps the Inquisition.

3. The Tanning-Bed Media will happily participate in any inquisition, as long as it keeps them from investigating irrelevant issues like Obama’s ties to the Chicago Machine, William Ayers, ACORN, or his record on protecting infanticide.

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.

Maybee if Joe was actually a licensed plumber...
Maybe if his family is not all over the internet for contributing heavily to republican PAC's...
Maybe if his cousin wasn't a part of Keating 5...
Maybe if McCain didn't have things so well rehearsed to bring up "Joe Wurzelbacher" - so well rehearsed, in the first minutes of the debate...
Maybe if Joe's business wasn't going to make exactly $250,000 - the threshold in Obama's tax plan...
Maybe if Joe was the type to pay his property taxes...

Maybe we'd belive he wasn't a plant.

But he is.

Neither Joe nor the GOP planted the Marxist response in Obama's mouth.

Saul Alinsky did.

joe plumber was used by mccain as a political football. just like trig. mccain thrives on props and gimmicks, not ideas.

THAT's what we learned.

Neither Joe nor the GOP planted the Marxist response in Obama's mouth.

Saul Alinsky did.

Obama and McCain were HILARIOUS!

This is news? PATHETIC...ABC LOVES THEIR BABY OBAMA

Average Joe - raising tax rate from 36% to 39% on the richest people is hardly Marxism.

Unless you think it's right to start trillion dollar wars and not pay for them, then why don't you tell us who should have their taxes raised to cover the trillion dollar war:

The rich?
The middle class?
The poor?
Our children and their children?

Paying for what we spend is not Marxism, my friend, it is Patriotism.

Joe who? People are already voting and they dont care about white bald republicans, and their aspirations for one day, maybe buying their boss' plumbing company, and maybe someones tax plan affecting them. Thats the problem with simpletons they think these gimmicks all of the sudden cause people to rethink their opinions of the last 8 frickin years. Uh. NO.

The lines are long.....

its over.

Where is Sarah? Oh yeah, hiding. thats right, the liberal media might ask her a tough question.

Yeah good choice. hide her.

Obama 08

If you didn't see the speeches by McCain and Obama, you should find them as they were both hilarious.

The repubs are having to play defense in VIRGINIA! GEORGIA! COLORADO! MISSOURI!

Are you kidding me? This thing is OVER.

They pulled out of Wisconsin and NH today. Pennsylvania is next.

McCain tried to use Joe the Plumber to prove a point, only to have that point fall flat. Joe is a tax evader and a regular on right wing radio. McCain failed and no amount of Republican or right wing spin can change the facts.

MISSING IN THIS DEBATE is the fact the Joe Not-really-a-plumber is against ALL forms of progressive taxation.

HAS JOHN MCCAIN proposed a flat tax ???

No? Wouldn't you agree that this leaves McCain's message a little, ur, Erratic?

McCain's own program endorsed progressive taxes.

But according to Joe Not-really-a-plumber, this makes John McCain a socialist!

turns out that joe the plumber is really joe the LIAR.

NO quarter-million dollar business
NO plumbers liscence

and he will actually get a TAX BREAK under Obamas plan.

Though totally bummed out if the Big-O wins the White House... it will mean at least one positive outcome - the death of Liberal White Guilt.

No longer will the rest of America be held hostage by the likes of Sharpton or Jackson who have beat the rest of us with the club called white favoritism... if anything Obama is getting a pass because of the color of his skin rather than his accomplishments.

If the American people wake up on November 4, they will realize that America can ill afford an affirmative action president and vote McCain.

Wake up America - this is not American Idol!

At least the spending will be done in this country and not a country that has more money than the grapes an Italian gets harvesting his grape crop. Come on people ya all are smarter than dirt i hope taxes have to go up take a good look at the road you travel, that bridge the school bus crosses every day with your children in it,air port runways and security where is the dollars going to come from are you going to volunteer your services to fix that pothole that a volkswagen could fill or fix that steel beam holding up that bridge are you going to hold that wand over a body getting ready to fly somewhere. I would rather see tax and spend here than over there and you know where the over there is.

At least the spending will be done in this country and not a country that has more money than the grapes an Italian gets harvesting his grape crop. Come on people ya all are smarter than dirt i hope taxes have to go up take a good look at the road you travel, that bridge the school bus crosses every day with your children in it,air port runways and security where is the dollars going to come from are you going to volunteer your services to fix that pothole that a volkswagen could fill or fix that steel beam holding up that bridge are you going to hold that wand over a body getting ready to fly somewhere. I would rather see tax and spend here than over there and you know where the over there is.

One more thing...

I am an engineer. I don't make $250,000 a year.

I don't know any engineer who makes $250,000 though of course there are some.

No public school teacher makes $250,000.

Few doctors and virtually no lawyers make $250,000.

A quarter mil per year is not middle class.

WHY EXACTLY should I cry for Joe Not-really-a-plumber, should he somehow start making $250,000 a year and his taxes are still less than they would have been under Ronald Reagan?

Which candidate is mostly concerned with those making over $250,000?

Which candidate is mostly concerned with the middle class?

The Republicans are correct. Over the last 30 years the largest redistribtuion of wealth has taken place in world history. The GOP has taken it from the poor and middle classes and redistributed it to the top 1%. PROOF:

According to former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (and current Harvard Professor), the shift of income inequality over the last quarter century simply dwarfs the amount of money being discussed in partisan debates over wealth redistribution -- and represents a serious crisis of legitimacy for society.

The former secretary's frank evaluation of the effects of a generation-long transfer of wealth to the top one percent was notable in the political realm, since it came during a week in which Barack Obama's discussion with "Joe the Plumber" gave the issue of wealth redistribution a higher profile. In the final presidential debate, John McCain repeatedly chided Obama for his casual remark to Joe about intending to "spread the wealth around." But if Summers's analysis is correct, the scope of any government redistribution that has been proposed will be nowhere near as impactful as the natural swing of fortunes to the rich over the course of the last 30 years.

Summers, who is also an economic adviser to Obama and has been suggested as a potential future Treasury Secretary, made his remarks at a conference hosted by the Harvard Business School on Tuesday.

He asked attendees to compare the respective shares of wealth commanded by different classes of earners in 1979 to the contemporary figures.

In the last 29 years, Summers said, "you'll find that the share of income going from 80 to 99th percentiles has stayed the same. And those in top one percent have gained about $600 billion. Those in bottom 80 percent have lost about $600 billion."

Summers then calculated that this overall transfer of wealth averaged out to an additional $500,000 per year in earnings for those in the top one percent, and an $8,000 loss every year for those in the bottom 80 percent.

"If the bottom 80 percent had kept pace and earned that $8,000 ... their income growth would have been twice as high over the last generation as what we in fact observed. Think about this number: $600 billion a year. It is immense compared to any discussion of changing the tax system here or there," Summers added.

Later during his speech, titled "The Future of Market Capitalism," Summers suggested that the immensity of such a growth in income inequality should supersede the normal partisan debate over redistribution of wealth via the tax code -- unsurprisingly, a hot topic in this election season. "Whatever your broad approach to public policy," Summers said, "I would suggest to you this [inequality] represents a critical problem of legitimacy."