by hilzoy
"I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.
I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."
Actually, scratch my appeal to the deity. If God existed and were either benevolent or just, Joe the Plumber's fifteen minutes of fame would have been over about five minutes before they started.
"You know, I liked back in [...] World War II..." when my views would have been in perfect alignment with that of the other side.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 11, 2009 at 10:55 PM
Yeah , well, thanks for bringing him to our attention again.
Posted by: d'd'd'dave | January 11, 2009 at 10:59 PM
First: Joe is a dope. Period.
The fact that he is a dope is the basis of his fame and his popularity.
He is not only a dope, he is professional dope. And he's damned good at it.
Second: a nickel's worth of theodicy, FWIW.
It may well be that god exists, and is both benevolent and just, but is also simply not in the business of granting or not granting fifteen minutes of fame to guys like Joe the Plumber.
There may be things we can blame god for, but I'm not sure our own stupidity is one of them.
Posted by: russell | January 11, 2009 at 11:02 PM
Personally, I pay attention when Joe The Fake Plumber pronounces something to be 'asinine'. It's a kind of standard.
If God existed and were either benevolent or just, Joe the Plumber's fifteen minutes of fame would have been over about five minutes before they started.
Poor Joe - born too late! He says he 'liked it' the way he imagines it to have been 50+ years before he was born. Being a dumbass just ain't what it used to be - in 1917. True enough.
Posted by: jonnybutter | January 11, 2009 at 11:22 PM
So because we don't always succeed in getting the whole story, we shouldn't get any of it?
He does have a point that people sometimes unfairly blame soldiers for the decisions of their political masters.
If we make the assumption that god made us, how is god not to blame for any of our flaws?
Posted by: Desipis | January 11, 2009 at 11:23 PM
You know, like, happy happy happy... joy joy joy... missiles PLANES GGGGNNNAAAUUUUUUU WHAMMMMMMM YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Posted by: Alex Russell | January 11, 2009 at 11:25 PM
The stupidity is so large, I can hardly figure out how to get enough of a purchase on it. I feel like an ant trying to carry home a grape.
Posted by: Mrs. Polly | January 11, 2009 at 11:52 PM
We can't rule out the possibility that God is totally high.
Did that Israeli soldier look puzzled when Joe said that he, Joe, shouldn't be there?
Posted by: hf | January 12, 2009 at 12:28 AM
Hilzoy thats some strong statement, that God isn't benevolent and just. I wonder if you are spending too much time online. It seems to me you are making more intemperate comments like that than you used to.
Posted by: frank | January 12, 2009 at 01:18 AM
Um... I think that if the Creator started to dictate what (and who) blogs could cover, Hilzoy, you and I would both rush to petition the Heavenly Throne for a little more freedom. I mean, I can see an argument that the Creator could allow human freeedom without going quite as far as allowing Auschwitz or Stalin's purges, but-- Joe the Plumber? If the Creator forbade stupidity, how much freedom would any of us have?
Posted by: John Spragge | January 12, 2009 at 03:13 AM
You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em.
You know, I'm not clear from this whether Joe the Plumber is aware that WWI and WWII actually happened. You know? Real soldiers really got killed. Real civilians really got killed. They were not just wars happening "on, you know, the screen" with actors playing the troops and a script so everyone "would be real excited and happy".
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 12, 2009 at 04:54 AM
I think the media should have no business in it.
And having said that, he placed both feet firmly in his mouth and began swallowing. Soon, there was nothing left of him other than a small grease slick.
Yet another tragic case of the Ouroboros Syndrome . . .
Posted by: rea | January 12, 2009 at 05:38 AM
And who does he think made those images on the screen in those good ol' days? They were usually accompanied by the names of the cameramen that died (and those were often not soldiers)*. Were those all camera droids that just got named to put a human face on them?
---
What's worse, Joe the War Correspondent or Joe the Country Singer? When will he breathe new life into the Joe the Plumber p0rn franchise?
*at least it was the tradition over here, not sure whether the same was done in the US.
Posted by: Hartmut | January 12, 2009 at 05:48 AM
There IS a sliver of truth there: Today's journalists get hold of critical military secrets, like troop movements, or deployment plans, or that we're preparing to surgically separate Pakistan from it's nukes, and they don't clam up, they see a scoop, and report it. The truth is, if they'd behaved that way back during WWII, or even as late as the Korean war, there would have been treason prosecutions.
The US military has to be nuts to put professional journalists in a position to learn anything important while disclosing it could still hurt operations.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | January 12, 2009 at 06:23 AM
Brett, US reporters did that in WW2 and were not prosecuted automatically (although censorship went up a bit after such occasions). E.g. newspapers printed statements by submariners that they were perfectly safe because the Japs would always set their depth charges too shallow. Iirc what I have read on the general topic, the US government was really concerned about incidents like these but would rarely do more than sending angry letters or asking the censors to be more careful.
Writing aginst the war itself* was a tank of a very different color scheme.
*or pointing to bureaucratic blunders like the defective torpedos (iirc deliberate leaks after any attempt to have the problem solved by going the official way was blocked)
Posted by: Hartmut | January 12, 2009 at 07:07 AM
"Loose lips sink ships" propaganda nonwithstanding. But those were more aimed at the armed forces and the population in general, not specifically the press.
Posted by: Hartmut | January 12, 2009 at 07:10 AM
Poor Jeff Gannon must be kicking himself so hard these days...
Posted by: Uncle Kvetch | January 12, 2009 at 07:27 AM
You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em.
CLAP LOUDER!
Posted by: cleek | January 12, 2009 at 07:32 AM
Ah, those happy World War I and II days, when soldiers were just people on the screen, and not, you know, relatives and friends.
Clearly, what we really need are hologram soldiers. Why isn't the miliary focusing on this?
Posted by: mari | January 12, 2009 at 08:46 AM
I like to think that God always answers your prayers, but that answer isn't always quite what you had in mind. In this case, it might be that God wanted to show Joe that a career as a journalist isn't what He had in mind for Joe.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 12, 2009 at 08:58 AM
Joe the Scummer, the cowardly, skinhead, subhuman, unAmerican f--kwad, reports that it's safer and more cheerful in the theater than it is in Theater.
It's lucky his undescended girly Coulter testicles suffer from hemophilia so that he couldn't enlist. He bleeds profusely from the movie ketchup bottle.
If Joe Chummer gets his ass blown off on his current assignment, please God do not report it to me. (Wait, that would be good news, so maybe it should be reported).
Keep it secret from his barren mother too, whose womb should be bronzed and set among the monuments in Washington D.C. as a shrine to the abortion that has become the Republican Party.
I want no further news about how low the Republican Party will dive to bottomfeed the dregs of American society to show the world how fucking ignorant our best and brightest have become.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my mother's a Republican so I know there are decent people in both parties, yadda, yadda, yadda.
When Joe gets back, raise his taxes, including the new tax on stupidity entering the country. He'll wish he'd been a dead war hero instead.
Posted by: John Thullen | January 12, 2009 at 09:03 AM
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you today's conservative movement.
Posted by: JadeGold | January 12, 2009 at 09:43 AM
Hey, how much is he getting paid for this? I sure hope it's not enough that he'd have to pay taxes.
Posted by: Quodlibet | January 12, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Posted by: freelunch | January 12, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Your God has an interesting sense of humor.
that's just a blasphemous rumor.
Posted by: cleek | January 12, 2009 at 10:58 AM
It may well be that god exists, and is both benevolent and just, but is also simply not in the business of granting or not granting fifteen minutes of fame to guys like Joe the Plumber.
True. I mean, it's not like God forced Joe not to bother learning or reading or researching any of the history, literature or cultural studies on the Middle East.
Though I can understand why Joe didn't bother, I mean it's not like we have 6,000 - 7,000 years worth of that stuff just lying around.
Oh wait. Never mind.
Posted by: Comrade Dread | January 12, 2009 at 11:09 AM
If we make the assumption that god made us, how is god not to blame for any of our flaws?
A good question. It's a dilemna any parent can understand.
Posted by: russell | January 12, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Is Joe the least self-aware person ever?
Posted by: byrningman | January 12, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Joe, meet Ernie Pyle, one of the magic elves who created those newsreels before the movies your parents attended. He did, as it turned out, perish in the process of reporting on a war that nearly everyone in the US supported...but keep in mind that he's got a library named after him. Goals, young man, set yourself goals!
Hilzoy, thanks for giving Joe one more platform. We are all stupider for having read it.
Posted by: PhoenixRising | January 12, 2009 at 11:25 AM
cleek wins the Depeche Mode thread.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 12, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Is Joe the least self-aware person ever?
Joe's not to blame. Anyone who voted GOP the past 8 years isn't self-aware.
Reponsibility for this rolling freakshow belongs to PajamasMedia.
Posted by: JadeGold | January 12, 2009 at 11:45 AM
The horrifying thing is that the Republicans held this guy up as the archetype of everyday Americans.
Posted by: Anthony Damiani | January 12, 2009 at 11:55 AM
The really horrifying thing is they might be right.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 12, 2009 at 12:02 PM
The really horrifying thing is they might be right.
...about the modern GOP that is...
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 12, 2009 at 12:05 PM
So does he also think that reporters should not have covered 9-11, because there was another side to it?
Posted by: Ara | January 12, 2009 at 12:18 PM
The Watergate plumbers had Joe the Plumber in mind for the Pulitzer Prize.
Jope represents the New Ignorati.
Posted by: John Thullen | January 12, 2009 at 12:28 PM
As I said over at my own space, this has kind of a beauty to it. The man is known for a name and a profession not his own. His entire source of infamy is based on nothing.
It is 100% appropriate that he would be a war reporter that criticizes other war reporters for reporting about war.
Posted by: Dan | January 12, 2009 at 01:28 PM
He is not a war reporter. He's a guy in Israel with stupid opinions and a camera and microphone. Don't put this guy in the same category as Ernie Pyle and Bill Maudlin.
Posted by: tomeck | January 12, 2009 at 02:36 PM
He is not a war reporter. He's a guy in Israel with stupid opinions and a camera and microphone.
He's a *Republican* guy in Israel, working for conservative website.
You'd think that getting waxed in the last couple of elections, the GOP might have dialed back the stupidity. Instead, the go to eleven.
Posted by: JadeGold | January 12, 2009 at 03:01 PM
Sorry. I meant to put quotes around the initial "war reporter."
Posted by: Dan | January 12, 2009 at 03:24 PM
I think grocery stores should Be abolished from, uh, you know, selling groceries.
Posted by: Bob | January 12, 2009 at 03:29 PM
I think grocery stores should Be abolished from, uh, you know, selling groceries.
You know, I liked back in great-grandpa's day, when you'd go out back and see you vegetables in, you know, the dirt, and everyone would be all excited and happy for'em.
Posted by: russell | January 12, 2009 at 04:57 PM
that's just a blasphemous rumor.
Blasphemy is a victimless crime.
Back to the original subject, though: sometimes I think it's great that Wurzelbacher and Palin (and even Dick and Dubya) are still in the public eye. The election was gratifying, but not enough of a showdown between sanity and stupidity, for my taste. We dodged a bullet, mostly. The Ignorant and Proud of It wing of the GOP still lives. It can't be defeated by appeals to reason. Our best hope is that it reduce itself to an object of ridicule. Joe the Plumber, Sarah the Governor, and Dubya the Exit Interviewee, are doing a bang-up job along those lines. As a godless librul, I say: thank God for that.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | January 13, 2009 at 12:50 AM
Hilzoy thats some strong statement, that God isn't benevolent or just
Agreed. His neverending cruelty and capriciousness are just a test of your faith!
Posted by: gil mann | January 13, 2009 at 01:27 PM