“Et tu, Joe The Plumber?”
Those might be defeated Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s words in light of conservative talk show host Glenn Beck’s interview where the man John McCain would not stop talking about in debates, on commercials and on the stump — the man who became a major political motif during the past few weeks of campaign 2008 — has verbally turned against his biggest rhetorical booster in a way nearly as breathtaking as the way Brutus turned against Julius Caesar.
Who ever would have thought we’d see the day to see an interview when the man McCain turned into an instant worldwide media celebrity would say this:
Joe Wurzelbacher lashed out Tuesday at former GOP presidential nominee John McCain, the man who made Wurzelbacher famous as “Joe the Plumber.”
Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”
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.”
Joe W the Plumber, however, praised Sarah Palin in the interview as “the real deal.”
During the campaign Wurzelbacher didn’t make comments quite like this. The news was filled with stories about him skyrocketing to celebrity due to McCain, signing with a P.R. firm and even wanting toa country western CD. He told Fox News he was “broke,” but details emerged about some kind of book deal…
The Joe-the-Plumber political motif is now a lot less-compelling so Obama doesn’t have to listen to that narrative anymore.
But now Obama has to listen to a new narrative — that of Rod The Accused Illinois Senate Seat Salesman.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.