My friend Travis has taken an unpopular, but sound, stance against creating new taxes and new debt for the people in Salt Lake County.

Read his post at Gazelem here.

We need to be reminded that our duty is to make unpopular that which is unsound. We should begin here at home.

Not even two days have gone by since Joe the Plumber became an American icon representing all of us that don’t believe “spreading the wealth” is the right thing to do, and the AP has already begun the hatchet job to take him down for having the temerity to question the Messiah.

The irritation manifest by the AP in this non-story is brought to a head in Joe Biden’s response that there are no “Joe the Plumbers in [his] neighborhood.” Could it be that they all moved away after Katie’s Restaurant closed down 20 years ago? Or could it be they all got tired of being taxed nearly to death in Joe’s neighborhood with nothing to show for it? Of course, judging from Biden’s failure to realize that his favorite restaurant had been closed for 2 decades, it isn’t hard to imagine that Biden has been simply never met the “Joe the Plumber” in his neighborhood.

Read carefully the AP story. First, the story itself is ridiculous. It makes no difference whether Joe the Plumber has a license or not. It doesn’t contribute to the debate; it’s a huge red herring, for which the writer ought to be fired for wasting the AP’s money. Of all the important things happening in the world right now, the time and effort of the Associated Press is dedicated to verifying Joe’s claim that he didn’t need a plumber’s license from the county authorities. The story is a mindless, meaningless hack job by a writer whose goal is to cast aspersions on this new American hero.

It’s plenty obvious what the AP is up to here, and it’s despicable. ANd liberals across the nation are now saying, “I knew there was something suspicious about that guy!” So he doesn’t have a plumber’s license, so what? It doesn’t make him any less qualified to ask the question, unless you’re a liberal Obamaphile.

The article points out that Joe “doesn’t have a good plan put together on how he would buy Newell Plumbing and Heating in nearby Toledo.” This point is designed to incite questions in the reader’s mind about Joe’s ability to actually buy the business. In other words, he shoudn’t be asking this question because it obviously won’t ever directly affect him. He’s just causing trouble for Obama.

Then there are the one-line paragraphs:

“There’s a lot I’ve got to learn,” he said.

Wurzelbacher said he’s feeling overwhelmed.

“I just hope I’m not making too much of a fool of myself,” he added.

These are all intended to create an impression that Joe is incompetent to ask the question, thus discrediting him. That last one-liner is actually the last sentence of the story. It is especially designed to convey the impression from the mind of the writer to the mind of the reader, that Joe is making a fool of himself and should be ignored.

Except that they can’t ignore him because he’s put the Holy Obama on the spot in front of millions of Americans. I predict that, within the next several days, Joe and the plumbing business he works for will be cited for not having a plumbing license, and the AP will run another story about how dangerous it is to have plumbers without licenses. Keep watching.

In the meantime, Glenn Beck has offered Joe a loan to help him purchase Newell Plumbing and Heating. We should all be so lucky as to have plumbers like Joe in our neighborhoods. Since 9-11 we have honored firemen and policemen for their everyday service to our communities. Beginning today, those honored ranks now include the everyday guy with a plunger, dedicated to cleaning the out the crap lodged in our sewers, especially the one in Washington DC.

Update: I hadn’t even had this up for twenty minutes and already I’m finding people on youtube saying Joe was paid by McCain, or that he’s a fraud, or other such liberal non-sense. I fear for my country.

And here is part 3 of the series. Please read these. They are fully annotated and researched. Glenn is not engaging in “Republicans-good; Democrats-bad” rhetoric. He points out that both parties are at fault, which is the result of our electing people of low quality who are unwise, dishonest, egotistical, and self-centered.