Gaza is a dangerous place for a rookie reporter right now. If Pajamas media was out for anything but a quick buck at the expense of Joe’s safety, they’d make sure he is accompanied by an experienced journalist, like former white house correspondent Jeff Gannon. As is, this story has the smell of a cheap publicity stunt by a desperate website.
Here’s how I see it, furt. If some average idiot wants to wander around the Middle East with a webcam and go sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong- fine. God forbid that anyone be prevented from expressing some sort of half-baked opinion about anything.
The problem with Joe the Plumber (besides his work on The Shield, which I found overrated) is that thanks to John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the the 24 hour news cycle, the rest of the world might actually be under the mistaken impression that this guy is somehow important and carries influence. They don’t see him for what he really is, which is something akin to a possum that won’t get out of your garbage can.
At absolute best, he gets through his sojourn without saying or doing something that’s going to require some sort of explanation and/or apology from the diplomatic corps.
At worst, he gets his ass killed.
I think a great potential exists for him to get kidnapped and held for ransom. That would suck for him, since Tough Guys don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Most likely scenario- he makes some sort of faux pas that will played to the max for its propoganda value and help make an already horrible situation that much harder to deal with. Plus, since he does have some sort of bizarre celebrity status, the State Department will probably have to expend time and resources making sure that he doesn’t get himself or anybody else into trouble. I just pray to God that he doesn’t somehow end up in the middle of Downtown Gaza and start witnessing.
Just because somebody can do something doesn’t mean they should.
Israel is not letting any journalists into Gaza right now.
OK, no journalists. How about self-important ignoramuses?
He’s not going to Gaza, in the interview he said he wants to talk to Israeli regular Joes and some soldiers.
That’s like covering the game from the dressing room. Covering the fighting involves being where the fighting is. Grandstanding cowardly fuck.
To be ruthlessly fair, the Israelis aren’t letting anyone go into Gaza, not just wart-brained, all American. bullet headed, Saxon mother’s sons.
Anyone see The Daily Show last night? Great bit on Joe Wurzelbacher, also known as “PLEASE GO AWAY!”
“‘Joe the Plumber is going to Gaza for Pajamas Media.’ Is that a story or a Mad-Lib?!”
My favorite part is when he said God would protect him and keep him safe because he’s a Christian – not like those Godless Jews.
Or maybe he can jump off the tallest building in Jerusalem and see if God protects him and keeps him safe because he’s a Christian.
Isn’t that how Anderson Cooper got his start? He just flew down to Africa with a camera, and started “reporting” without an actual job or anything? IIRC, he was in his late teens or early 20’s…
Ah, yes; the ransom of Red the Chief.
Actually, that’s not a terribly unusual approach. Quite a few war correspondents I know got to be such by just going there and doing the job, rather than waiting to be sent out there by a news organization. If you’re someplace where there’s news and there’s not a lot of reporters on the ground and you can write a half-way decent story, you bet you’ll find someone interested in your work.
My problem?
Somebody out there, probably the same somebody who sold 51% of the voters in 2000 and 2004 on the idea that an uneducated you-could-have-a-beer-with lunkus would make a good president, is still trying to palm off this anti-elitism lesson on us. Common people are gooooooood, goes the hypnotic refrain, common people are better than educated Ivy League experts with actual, you know, intelligence and qualifications. Being un-qualified is actually better qualification than being qualified!
And so we get Joe the Plumber. George W. Bush. Sarah Palin. Not bad people necessarily, in and of themselves, but comfortingly average and familiar, someone who never uses a word we have to look up, who never knows more about the situation than we do, someone who flies on gut instinct. “I don’t know about the economy, but I should be the leader of it,” suggested one, as if that’s supposed to make us feel better.
Meanwhile, who is really running the show? Not the likes of Bush. It’s all a double-blind, a misdirection, a paper-thin figurehead drawling feel-good platitudes and doing grandstand theatrics on the deck of a carrier, while the real business of government takes place behind a veil of secrecy in an undisclosed location.
The fact that Joe the Plumber is being foisted on the American people as a war correspondent, as if somehow a blue-collar dingbat can better appreciate and convey the nuances of a centuries-old conflict than a seasoned so-called liberal reporter, is the kind of Hollywood lack-wit magical thinking that only works in movies like “Rain Man.” Children smarter than adults; room full of autistics outwit evil corporation; handicapped people best fully-capable people in gymnastics competition; unequipped underdog sports team defeats rich well-trained crosstown rivals. Soon you’ll hear Joe the Plumber called “scrappy” or maybe even “plucky.” Cue the training montage.
Leave the reporting to the professionals. In fact, leave most everything to the professionals. Good ol’ you-could-have-a-beer-with Ted From Hometown, U.S.A., is the perfect person to have a beer with but when your house is burning down you get a goddamn fireman. When your appendix bursts, you get a surgeon. It’s no different when you need a war correspondent; you reach for an expert.
I have had enough of billionaire oil barons and multi-millionaire elites with seven mansions playing the “just plain folks” routine on television, sadly watching the destruction of the country from the safety of a jet airliner window. I think we’ve conclusively proved in the last 8 years that “just plain folks” are not the ones on whom we should rely to make the big decisions, or to educate the rest of us on the issues. I would trust Joe the Plumber, just barely, to show up on time and fix a leaky pipe. Maybe. If he got his license.
Shot Clock, thanks for making the effort to answer.
AFAICT, there are all risks that go for any foreign correspondant.
If he was making some kind of arrogant statements about how he was going to infiltrate Hamas and get undercover information or something, that’d be different. But so far as I know, all he’s saying he’s gonna do is go over and talk to everyday Israelis and report back on his impressions. This is not something that requires a rocket scientist to do.
The media of course, has a vested interest in the myth that journalism is some sort of arcane craft that requires intense professional training, and thus it’s to be expected that they’ll scoff at the idea of a mere prole trying to do their job. My own take is that we were much better served when foreign correspondants were high-school graduates who had no ambition higher than writing down what they saw and heard. But that’s all FWIW.
Really? This is what you consider MOST likely? If he just goes and does his schtick and nothing happens, you’ll be mildly surprised?
In other words, people might care what he says. And this is bad because you don’t like him.
Fair enough, but I have to ask: would your response would be the same if Barbra Streisand or Michael Moore or Bill Moyers was going over to do reporting? Were you equally upset when Sean Penn went to Iraq?
All those people at least had done something with their lives to become well-known besides just lying to a Presidential candidate who was nice enough to answer his question.
I actually don’t give a rat’s ass what this idiot does or what happens to him, I’m just tired of having to see his empty, bald head when I turn on the television. If you want to hang on his every word, knock yourself out. I hope he repeats that line about being protected by Jesus to those Israeli soldiers, though.
I didn’t hear about Penn; I don’t give a rat’s ass what Babs thinks.
Michael Moore is another story. I’ve only ever seen one of his feature films (“Roger and Me” with the short “Pets or Meat”) and never watched his short-lived TV show. He has a history of opening up his mouth and saying stupid things. On the other hand, since so many on the right wing try so hard to silence him or to diminish or minimalize what he says, it would at least be interesting to hear what he has to say, even if he’s completely wrong.
What’s wrong with Bill Moyers, by the way? I thought he was pretty middle of the road. Is he on the right wing list of evil liberal conspirators now? Did he say something factual about Bush or something?
Well, by that rationale, I should think you’d be dying to hear from Joe, just since he’s hated by some on the left…
To address your earlier post (missed it before): as noted, I don’t agree that “journalism” is a skill that requires professional training and an exclusive caste of practitioners (in contra, say, medicine). There was no such thing as formal education for reporters until relatively recently, and I’d argue that the Cronkite/Ben Bradlee generation, to say nothing of the great newspapermen that preceded them, did just fine without it.
Ha! So I’m not the only one!
-Joe