The actual “Joe the Plumber” conversation
The most recent, last-ditch tactic of the McCain campaign is trying to paint Obama as a socialist. Phrases such as “Obama is the most liberal senator in congress” and “he favors the redistribution of wealth” are at the forefront of the latest fear mongering attempt by the campaign. Sadly, it’s also being vehemently repeated by the unfortunate souls buying into this line of horse shit rhetoric.
“Most liberal.” What does that even mean? Is he especially pro-choice? The “redistribution of wealth” argument first showed up on my radar in the final presidential debate where McCain cited Obama’s conversation with the now infamous Joe the Plumber as proof positive of Obama’s socialist, wealth sharing agenda. In the last few days, the actual word “socialism” has been added. McCain’s socialism tack is actually pretty ironic given that the current Republican administration has just literally socialized the majority of our banking system — a piece of legislation that McCain himself voted for and defends as necessary government intervention. Additionally, Obama has a long list of Republican endorsements. If he’s so liberal or so obviously a socialist, why does he have such a strong conservative following? Yet the McCain campaign continues to insist that we essentially trust them on this — “Obama is a socialist! Just look what he told Joe!”
With all the coverage that Joe’s gotten (ironically having now given more press conferences than Sarah Palin), what I missed was the actual conversation between Joe and Barack Obama. I’m kicking myself for not looking this up sooner. Here’s the conversation — a far cry from the socialist manifesto it’s been made out to be.
This to me is pretty much proof positive that the “trust us, he’s bad” point of view of the McCain campaign doesn’t hold a drop of water. Obama’s use of the phrase “spread the wealth” is obviously colloquialism, not socialist agenda. This is a great example of what we find when we listen to the source, not the feed.
With “socialist”, “terrorist”, and “Muslim” used up, the only asinine accusation left in the McCain fear arsenal would be that Obama is a closeted homosexual. I suppose there’s still time.
