1) The Democratic Party has behaved “rottenly” to Joe.

As far as I can see, nobody here had adduced any actual hard evidence that the democratic party or the Obama campaign did anything to Joe. If you have actual evidence, as opposed to rage against a supposedly “biased” press, bring it on.

2) We ought to listen to conservative indignation over this

Sorry, no sale. Prominent conservatives have already claimed that any person who puts themselves forward in the public arena makes themselves fair game for anything, and despite repeated and, in my view, disingenuous attempts to draw a distinction between Graeme Frost and Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, the moral remains: if you live by the law of the jungle, you sometimes get stuck being the zebra. Whining doesn’t help. Grow up and deal with it.

3) The media, in fact checking Joe, treated him badly.

This charge rests on three revelations:
a) He does not actually have the first name of Joe. Forgive me if I don’t perceive that revelation as an undue invasion of “joe’s” privacy, or indeed as any kind of injury at all.

b) He does not have a plumber’s license
I consider this absolutely germaine to the question. The use of “Joe the Plumber”, as opposed to Joe the ordinary guy, implies that “Joe” speaks for the legion of small business people who make the United States work. As I say, I know some of these people. I know the economic hits many of them have taken over the past couple of years. I have no idea how that has affected their votes, but I do know that nobody who has not shared their actual experience can speak for them. Someone named Joe who dreams of one day making a good living as a small business owner, and Joe who actually sweats out the job of meeting payroll in the Bush economy will have very different experiences, and the press merely did their job in determining which perspective this “Joe” spoke from.

(c) Samuel J. (Joe) Wurzelbacher owes back taxes. OK, I might hold of on this, but I can’t object to it in principle. If someone wants to make arguments about tax policy, it makes some sense to ask whether or not they actually pay their own tax obligations. And tax liens go on the public record; the press has hardly behaved intrusively here.

If in fact the press has done nothing worse than expose these three facts, they have done little more than their job of informing the American people on issues of importance to them. And given what you and others have posted so far, they haven’t crossed any serious lines to do it, having revealed things on the public record and mostly of public interest. See the New Yorker for a good analysis of the issue.

Hi John. This is called the tu quoque fallacy. You could show me your Michelle Malkin and I could raise you my Michael Moore and you could come back with Ann Coulter and I could come back with most of the diarists on DailyKos and we could go on like that for some time — but we’d be wasting our time. It would all be irrelevant to what is under discussion here: the rotten behavior of the press and the Democratic party toward a voter who did nothing more than ask a legitimate question. Pointing the finger at some conservative who did some other bad thing is nothing more than a distraction, and it’s a dumb one at that, since if you truly thought what Michelle Malkin did was so bad, t you’d be criticizing your side for imitating her, rather than defending them for it.

1) Apparently you don’t realize that “antebellum” refers to the *pre-civil war* era, and that the federal government was already engaged in a war against the South in 1862. While you were already going down hill, after that you just picked up speed.

2) So now, instead of responding to charges that the media has been unduly intrusive into Joe The Plumber’s life, you are trying to shift the conversation in trying to compare this with another incident without answering the charges.

Answer the charges truthfully first – and then we can discuss (neoneocon permitting) other situations and other people.

3) Debt backed by the US government, whether it’s national debt, budget deficits, or trade deficits (since you still don’t want to be specific) have a long history in our Republic.

If you’re talking unadjusted dollar amounts not taking into account inflation – yes we have a high debt.

However, a better measure of national debt is as a percentage of GDP – in which case the national debt was higher during the 1940’s and 1950’s as a percentage of GDP.

I also seem to recall reading – since you mentioned the Civil War era – that the debt Lincoln racked up during the Civil War wasn’t actually paid off until around WWI.

One must maintain a certain long term perspective in discussing these issues if one wants to be taken seriously.

MATTHEWS: How many members of Congress, do you think are in that anti-American crowd you describe? How many congresspeople you serve with? I mean, there’s 435 members of Congress…

BACHMANN: What I would say — what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti- America? I think people would be — would love to see an expose like that.

2) An Ohio small business owner made the points I would have made about the “Joe the plumber” story, only better. And I still see no evidence of any reporter treating “Joe” with anything even remotely like the brutality shown by Michelle Malkin et. al. to the Frost family. When they get to peeking into Joe’s windows to inspect his counter tops, let me know.

3) Both the trade deficit and the government budget deficit appeared as chronic fixtures of the American scene under Reagan; both grew far worse under the current president, and both will eventually lead to ruin if allowed to persist.

I probably missed a good deal of the media hanging out in Joe’s yard. My inquiry in these threads has been why people here would hold Barack Obama accountable for the behavior of the media.

It strikes me as a world view that will lead to increasing isolation and marginalization.

And I disagree with the tolerance found here for underage sex tourism. It is a deeply repugnant practice.

I have addressed Joe TP. He was minding his own business in his yard when he was accosted by your hero. He said his bit and then tried to go on with his life. Next thing he knew the media were all over his driveway and in his private life. Did you miss that? His recent appearances on Huckabee, et al are in response to the slime attack he experienced.

I think I told you once before that your meaningless arguments are not worth a response. You suckered me in. Good job of hooking me. You dangled a fly and I took it just like the trout I love to torment.

I do want to go on record, however, as saying that underage sex tourism in the Dominican Republic is not something I know anything about. I doubt that Neo does either. But, since you seem to be expert, let us have your opinion on the subject. I expect it would be at least as meaningful as your opinion on the Presidential candidates.