Michelle Malkin is excoriating “liberals” for attempting to destroy Joe the Plumber. It isn’t just the pot calling the kettle black, it’s the pot wandering into the pot store and declaring all other pots black-tinged traitors to our great nation, then offering to run the pot reeducation camp to bring them in line with acceptable and decent container values.
The inherent problem with the Joe the Plumber schtick isn’t anything related to scandal. I got a little gleeful yesterday about the immediate and crushing blows to Joe’s credibility, which, as I thought about it, really wasn’t the issue. It turns Joe into another (far less egregious) version of Graeme Frost (albeit one who is getting judged on his own characteristics rather than his parents).
Where Plumber Joe became problematic was sometime between when John McCain decided that he was a perfect example of what was wrong with Barack Obama’s tax policies and when McCain decided that he was perfect for everything. It’s easier for us to put ourselves in the shoes of Everyman when Everyman is a series of vague and readily applicable qualities - struggling to pay bills, dissatisfied with our health insurance, worried about the state of the world - than it is when Everyman becomes a real person, because the numerous differences between our lives and everyone else’s become far more apparent.