During the whole Joe the non-plumber phase of the McCain Palin campaign trail I tried to avoid writing how absurd it was having this guy on the trail. I’ve yet to see anything from Joe then or now that shows he’s trying to parlay his 15+ minutes of fame into anything that has to do with the plumbing profession.

 
photo credit: ronnie44052

William Hung, love or hate him, at least did something for/in the music industry. If I’m wrong about Joe using his celebrity (gasp) to do something noteworthy for plumbers around the country then please use the comments below to correct me. I’d like to give the guy some credit for giving something back

Check that, I will give him credit for agreeing with most of the rest of America that the wall street bailouts were a bad idea. And the bailouts, much as I’d feared, didn’t stop there. The big three automakers are about to get an infusion of about half of what they wanted, but still some $15 billion dollars. U.S taxpayers having to prop up these companies remains a swelling, sour knot in my stomach.

Now back to Joe who got himself a book deal and is out promoting the book. He is claiming he is giving back and spreading the wealth around – only not to plumbers, but to publishing companies:

"I am not going to a conglomerate that way we actually can get the economy jump started. Like there is five publishing companies in Michigan. There’s a couple down in Texas. They are small ones that can handle like 10 or 15,000 copies. I can go to a big one that could handle a million or two. But they don’t need the help. They are already rich. So that’s spreading the wealth to me," he said.

In this book Joe covers the unpopularity of the bailout with the American people. During the promotion on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Joe turned the heat up on McCain:

I asked [John McCain] a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen. Yet he voted for it. … And I asked him some pretty direct questions. 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.

So why didn’t Joe get off the bus? Because he believed Obama would be worse.

Oh, and for the record, Sarah Palin isn’t included in Joe’s McCain dissing. He didn’t get to spend much time with her and yet believes she is “the real deal.” Pardon me for not taking that endorsement seriously.

I can only sigh at this development, really.

If Joe really disagreed with McCain on the bus about this and was “appalled” then why didn’t he tell the media this during the campaign? If he did then he would have likely been booted off the bus and made to walk home. I doubt this revelation from Joe the plumber could have hurt the McCain camp any further but it surely would have helped Joe’s credibility. Help make him look like he was about more than riding the bus both figuratively and literally.

If Joe is now using John McCain, a war hero whom despite my disagreements politically I respect for serving this country with bravery and loyalty, to promote his book then shame on him. McCain was clearly misguided on his bailout vote but now Joe is biting the hand that fed him for … what? Why? To show he is an independent thinker?

Sure sounds like Joe deserves another monniker: disloyal. America has always had crazy things going on but these times seem crazier than any other time in my life.

I’m curious in an accident scene gawker kind of way what happens when Joe needs more money and takes a second book or other non-plumber related deal? Does he then diss Sarah ‘The Real Deal’ Palin to get some extra media love? If this is the publicity stunt that it smells like to me — and shame on me for giving this guy any further exposure if the spade is a spade — Joe and his ilk can’t exit the spotlight soon enough.

But before things go dark, Joe, please throw real plumbers a bone. Those guys actually have to work with crap, rather than spew it from their pieholes.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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