PrairiePundit

Guardian: First came the Polish plumbers, overturning the natural order by tackling U-bends in a more reliable and affordable way than their established British rivals. Now there is another field in which east Europeans are driving well-paid Brits out of work - on the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan. The market in which ex-military can earn six-figure sums as private security guards overseas is drying up, with salaries in sharp decline and contracts increasingly being offered to cheaper foreign soldiers, the Guardian has learned. The National Association of Security Professionals (Nasp), an organisation for those working in the private security industry, said former British soldiers are being laid off by companies in Iraq who are turning to east Europeans instead. The number of Britons providing security in Iraq has fallen from a peak of about 5,000 in 2004-05 to nearer 2,000 this year. Mark Shurben-Browne, a director of Nasp, said the market had reached saturation point, with compan...

Akron Beacon-Journal: The election is over, but the Joe the Plumber case is not. Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said his office is now looking at a half-dozen agencies that accessed state records on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. The Beacon Journal has learned that, in addition to the Department of Job and Family Services, two other state offices — the Ohio Department of Taxation and Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers — conducted database searches of Joe the Plumber. Wurzelbacher became an instant celebrity after he asked Barack Obama a series of questions in his Toledo driveway about the Democrat's tax policies. In the third debate between Obama and Republican John McCain on Oct. 15, the candidates referred to Joe the Plumber more than 20 times. The next day, the taxation department conducted two separate searche...

Columbus Dispatch: The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services has no records to support the assertion of its now-suspended director that computer checks often are run on people "thrust quickly into the public spotlight." In response to a public-records request, the state agency said today that it had no records involving prior checks of the type that Director Helen Jones-Kelley authorized on "Joe the Plumber." However, agency spokesman Brian Harter said while there are no records, Ohio's inspector general has been provided with "several examples of the practice." He could not provide details. ... The state agency has no policy addressing computer checks on the newly rich or famous. The agency does not keep records on whose confidential records are accessed, Harter said. As an example of checking on someone who may have come into money, Jones-Kelley cited a case where a lottery winner was found to owe child support. State law requires checks on lo...

Reporters should understand that people like Joe the Plumber have no need to suck up to them and therefore they are not likely to be intimidated by unfair question. The media's treatment of Joe is one of the more shameful aspects of this campaign. Joe is a voter who has a right to raise questions about the position of a candidate and by doing so, the media should not make the issue about him and not his question.

Columbus Dispatch: Vanessa Niekamp said that when was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case. Niekamp didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain's example in a debate of an average American. The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry. The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are "thrust into the public spotlight," amid suggestions they may have come into money...

The tradesmen revolt against liberalism continues.

David Hirsanyi: Barack Obama is going to fix the economy by "spreading the wealth around"? Now, I'm not attempting to demonize Obama, God forbid. It's just that, as we all know, that's what Obama told Joe the Plumber. Obama laughs off the charge of socialist behavior — and to be fair, socialism isn't the precise term to affix to his ideas. It's more like Robin Hood economics. On a recent campaign stop, Obama joked that, by the end of the week, McCain would be accusing him "of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten." A funny line. But, of course, Obama's lofty intellect must comprehend the fundamental difference between sharing your G.I. Joe with a friend and having a bully snatch your G.I. Joe for the collective, prepubescent good. It's the difference between coercion and free association and trade. In practical terms, it's the difference between government cheese and a meal at Ruth's Chris. Now, I...

Columbus Dispatch: A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on "Joe the Plumber" were more extensive than it first acknowledged. Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system. The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote. Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher. Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said. ... Republicans have painted the checks on Wurzelbacher as a politically motivated bid by De...

Columbus Dispatch: "State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber." Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama. The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama's tax proposals. Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate. Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the...

Douglas MacKinnon: ... Why are some Democrats worried that Mr. Obama may not necessarily be headed to the White House? For starters, the American people like to have checks and balances. With predictions that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will grow their liberal power bases in the House and the Senate, more Americans than reflected in various polls may decide to apply the brakes to an Obama presidency. And I know you’ve heard this before, experience does matter. Joe Biden may have inadvertently made that case for John McCain when he recently said that the world will test Barack Obama in six months. “The world is looking,” he said. “Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” By saying this, Mr. Biden planted a seed in some voters’ minds that terrorists, rogue nations or even a country like Russia may try to take advantage of Mr. Obama’s inexperience. The implication some may take away from Mr. Biden’s flat-out guarantee is that...

Thomas Frank: ... ... here are the words of Ronald Reagan's pollster, Richard Wirthlin, as recorded in one of the main Reagan strategy documents from 1980: "People act on the basis of their perception of reality; there is, in fact, no political reality beyond what is perceived by the voters." The context of Wirthlin's reality-denial, according to the historian Kim Phillips-Fein, who unearths his statement in her forthcoming book, "Invisible Hands," was the larger Republican plan to woo blue-collar voters. The mission was a success. It worked because Republicans wholeheartedly adopted Wirthlin's dictum. Reality is a terrible impediment when you're reaching out to workers while simultaneously cracking down on unions and scheming to privatize Social Security. Leave that reality to the "reality-based community," to use the put-down coined by an aide to George W. Bush. The "perception of reality," on the other hand, is an amazing po...

Byron York: Tito Munoz was ready to rock when John McCain showed up here at the Connaughton Community Plaza in Woodbridge, Virginia Saturday afternoon. Dressed in a yellow hard hat covered with McCain-Palin stickers, wearing an orange high-visibility vest, Munoz carried a hand-lettered sign that said CONSTRUCTION WORKER FOR McCAIN. He got a coveted spot in the bleachers directly behind McCain, where he could be seen in the camera shot along with the guy holding the sign that said PHIL THE BRICK LAYER and the woman with the ROSE THE TEACHER banner. He cheered a lot. Everybody was playing on the Joe-the-Plumber theme. McCain spent a lot of time on it in his stump speech, using the now-famous Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo, Ohio, as a stand-in for “small businessmen and women all over America [who] want to keep their earnings and not give it to the government.” McCain added that Obama’s response to Wurzelbacher — the assertion that it would be best to “spread the wealth around” — made Joe t...

Bill Kristol: According to the silver-penned Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, “In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics.” ... In fact, “There is a broad public consensus regarding the causes of the current problems with financial institutions and markets: 79 percent say people taking on too much debt has contributed a lot to the crisis, while 72 percent say the same about banks making risky loans.” This seems sensible. Indeed, as Sept. 11 did not result in a much-feared (by intellectuals) wave of popular Islamophobia or xenophobia, so the market crash has resulted in remarkably little popular hysteria or scapegoating. And considering what has happened, the vulgar public on Main Street has been surprisingly forgiving of those well-educated types on Wall Street — the ones who devised and marketed the sophisticated financial instruments that have brought the financial system to the brink of c...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady: ... Joe was practicing what I call the audacity of veracity. He made the Harvard-trained candidate look bad. For that the media decided he needed to be taken down a notch. Meanwhile, the fourth estate walked away from any serious discussion of Mr. Obama's slander of the finest U.S. ally in Latin America. To be fair, Mr. Obama probably did not set out on Wednesday night to insult millions of Colombians and revive the notion many U.S. neighbors have of the Ugly Gringo. But when Mr. McCain pointed out that opposing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement doesn't make sense -- because the U.S. is already open to imports from Colombia and because the agreement will open new markets for U.S. exporters during rough economic times -- Mr. Obama was caught flat-footed. He reached into his memory bank for whatever he had been told to say about Colombia. He seems to have found his hard drive loaded with Big Labor talking points. Here's what it spit out: ...

Reuben Navarrette: I realize it’s all about winning at this point. But someone has to ask: What has happened to the Democratic Party? It seems like just yesterday that the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy was talking about income equality and civil rights and worker protections and going to bat for the little guy, the blue collar laborer, the everyday Joe the Plumber . Now, the well-to-do elites who run the Democratic Party — and their surrogates — greet these people with brickbats. They insult them, talk down to them, and even try to destroy them. Isn’t that the sort of war on the working class that Democrats are always accusing those greedy and heartless Republicans of waging? In fact, since the Democratic presidential nominee isn’t exactly a drinking buddy of Joe Six-pack, he knew enough to recruit a regular Joe to be his running mate. What? Joe Biden wasn’t chosen for his eloquence or rhetorical discipline. It’s his job to schmooze so-called lunch bucket voters...

John Kass: The eyes of Joe the Plumber stare sightlessly from the media pike that his head has been impaled upon. A few crows fly over. As crows are curious, they become interested in the offering below. They lock their wings, caw and begin their swoop. Poor Joe. "I'm kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. Everybody wants to know about it," joked Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio , the celebrated Joe the Plumber of this presidential election. The quote proves Joe Wurzelbacher is alive, and that it's not Joe's real flesh-and-blood head up there on the media's mocking pike. It's just his figurative head, not the head of a man, but of an American reduced to symbolism for political purposes. It's much easier to mount a bloodless two-dimensional cartoon head on a sharp point. Yet even symbols have feelings, and it sure must have hurt. So, how did Joe lose his head? It's simple. He made three big mistakes. Mistake No. 1 was that Joe got involved in pres...

Toledo Blade: Already in the national spotlight, Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher last night strode onto the set of Fox News Channel's Huckabee program to thunderous applause. Host Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, began by saying that if John McCain wins, he'll largely have Mr. Wurzelbacher to thank. The Springfield Township resident, invoked repeatedly as "Joe the Plumber" during Wednesday's presidential debate, demurred. "Hopefully they'll have me to thank for it as far as telling people to get out and find their own answers," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "That's where I hope they go with it." ... Mr. Wurzelbacher, dressed in dark jacket, tie, and gray trousers, was seated beside Mr. Huckabee for much of the first 30 minutes of the hour-long program. He received support during the second segment from guest Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Mr. Wurzelbacher's f...

Jim Lundgren: Joe and Barack's Tax Problems. I was stunned to see some document showing Joe the Plumbers' tax problems on my 10pm (CT)newscast on the local NBC affiliate in Chicago on Thursday night. They have very little time for any national news and they actually spent time on Joe the Plumbers' tax problems. Amazing! But when an actual candidate — Barack Obama — released his tax returns, which on their face seemed to show an ethics violation of Illinois law, the press couldn't care less. ... That is the Obama media for you. It is hard to believe they could do all this digging on a guy who asked Obama a question and they are completely incurious about a guy who become President. Where are the media watch dogs outside of the conservative blogs? I guess they are too busy rooting for Obama.

Mark Steyn: G ive a man enough rope line and he’ll hang himself. There was His Serene Majesty President-designate Barack the Healer working the crowd at some or other hick burg, and halfway down the rope up pops a plumber to express misgivings about the incoming regime’s tax plans. Supposedly, under the Obama tax plan, 95 per cent of the American people will get a tax cut. You’d think that at this point the natural skepticism of any sentient being other than six-week-old puppies might kick in, but apparently not. If you’re wondering why Obama didn’t simply announce that under his plan 112 per cent of the American people will get a tax cut, well, they ran it past the focus groups who said that that was all very generous but they’d really like it if he could find a way to stick it to Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove and whatnot. So 95 per cent it is. By the way, like the nightly news shows, this column now has an exclusive lavishly funded Fact Check Unit set up at great expense (a ...

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: RONALD Reagan's most important contribution to the American political dialogue was his ability to move the tax issue from an economic-populist issue into a populist, blue-collar one. Under George W. Bush, however, the issue has switched back to one of class warfare, as increasing numbers of Americans have paid no taxes at all and the rates on those who did pay taxes fell. Now, a chance encounter with "Joe the Plumber" has afforded the Republicans the chance to use taxes as a blue-collar issue. The opening Joe provided and John McCain skillfully exploited in the third presidential debate gives the GOP ticket its first long shot at victory since McCain punted on the terrible, pork-laden, corporate-giveaway "rescue" bill Congress passed and Bush signed. Obama's tax plans and spending programs have emerged as the key point of difference between the campaigns. And the Democrat's comment to Joe that he saw his tax policy as ...