Jan09
Joe the Plumber goes to Jerusalem; Kyra Phillips snears
This is the same Kyra Phillips who was heard snearing about her sister-in-law when she was caught in the bathroom with a live mic. True to form, she had some choice words about Joe Wurzelbacher going to the Middle East to do some reporting for PJTV. Michelle Malkin has the details in today’s syndicated article:
CNN television anchor Kyra Phillips sneered (in her most objective and professional manner, of course): “Oh, Lord, Joe The Plumber’s got a new gig. It’s got nothing to do with the pipes, it’s got everything to do with Gaza.” After catching her breath during a commercial break, she embellished her teleprompter lines with ad-libbed contempt (something only seasoned professional journalists have experience doing, you see): “Now Joe The Plumber wants to flush out the truth as a war correspondent. I know, there are just no words.”
Still not done trashing the Toledo, Ohio citizen who had the temerity to question Barack Obama’s redistributionist policies, Phillips piled on with more derisive words: “Hey, Joe, what do you know? No, seriously, what do you know?…[H]e says he hopes to air Israelis’ views on the Gaza offensive. Lord, help us. Just want to remind you that Joe the Plumber has no journalism experience. No war zone experience either. But he thinks he’s, quote, ‘pretty well protected by God.’ So, what’s Joe been smoking, drinking?”
Yes, Kyra Phillips shows us once again how classy, and – ahem – objective, she truly is.
Roger Simon documents other journalists who are similarly indignant and offers an explanation as to why they feel the need to belittle Joe:
To be honest, some (maybe much) of this reportage is pretty snotty. Nora O’Donnell of MSNBC – herself a MA in international relations, lahdeedah – fairly frothed at the mouth at the prospect of the unqualified Joe having the temerity to report news in a foreign land. Those hipoisie over at Gawker weren’t too charitable either.
Evidently, a lot of people are annoyed that Joe’s fifteen Warhol minutes aren’t quite over yet. Or perhaps they’re threatened that a common man can be a reporter simply by asking common sense questions – no Columbia J-school degree required. (Hemingway didn’t have one. He didn’t even go to college, as I recall.) But the larger question is the role of expertise in general. Of course, experts are valuable, but so are those who ask the seemingly too obvious questions of the supposedly uninformed – dumb questions that can end up having more value for the public than all the experts combined. Sometimes, anyway.
Excellent point, Roger. If a plumber can head to Jerusalem do a reasonable job reporting the facts, then it diminishes these arrogant, elitist journalist types, which is what they’re afraid of.
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Kim,
I don’t understand all the hoopla about Joe the Plumber. He seems like a nice fella, but so what? He did step forward to ask Obama a relevant question leading up to the election, but what most people miss is that Joe, himself, actually will benefit from the Democratic tax cuts. The same is true for his boss, since neither he not Joe actually have earnings that exceed $250K.
What I do know, being born again, is that Jesus teaches us to work to help the poor and underprivileged. Since all taxes are so-called, “redistribution of wealth” whereby government takes money from one person and subsidizes enterprises to benefit the common good or community. This is the goal Jesus asks us to pursue or is it?
Over the last decade, the tax code has changed to take less and less revenue for government. As we know with our own budgets, this is unsustainable. Bush’s two tax cuts have skewed the tax schedule to allow the most wealthy to keep more and more of their incomes. During the same period, The CEOs of the largest corporations in America has seen their average income rise by twenty fold. They used to earn about 20 times what the average worker in their companies earned. Today, they make about 400 times their average employee! Adjusted for inflation, the average worker;s salary is basically unchanged over the last 2 decades.
Maybe, you think this is fair and in keeping with what Jesus would want. I certainly don’t. These obscene income gaps are certainly not good public policy. They lead to dislocations in the quality of life. More poverty and homelessness.
We have witnessed unprecedented greed in our corporations and on Wall Street over the last few years. Corruption and cronyism permeates our corporate life and federal government. Now is the time to change this and move in the direction Jesus directs.
http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Politics-Right-Wrong-Doesnt/dp/0060558288