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Shooting star meets falling star
(by Dave Lange - December 04, 2008)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Shooting star meets falling star
Joe the Plumber's monkey wrench couldn't turn John the Maverick into John the President, but it could turn Helen the Database Searcher into Helen the Job Searcher.
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the suburban Toledo man who doesn't have a plumber's license but who became a whirlwind sensation during the presidential election campaign, is a shooting star. Helen Jones-Kelley, the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services who does have a law license but who has become a liability to Gov. Ted Strickland, is a falling star.
After confronting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on his tax policy during an Ohio campaign stop on Oct. 12 and having his sobriquet invoked 23 times by Sen. John McCain in the presidential debate three days later, Mr. Wurzelbacher became a Republican folk hero and a public figure.
As such, his background warranted some scrutiny. Maybe not as much as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Mr. Obama's longtime pastor, or 1960s anti-Vietnam War radical Bill Ayers, who was not Mr. Obama's pal, received from the bulldog media. But probably more than the lapdog media gave to Mr. McCain's "old friend" and convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy or Joe Vogler, founder of the secessionist Alaskan Independent Party, to which Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin holds loyalties.
But flash-in-the-pan political notoriety did not entitle Ms. Jones-Kelley or her underlings to access confidential information maintained by the State of Ohio on Mr. Wurzelbacher.
The Ohio inspector general reported late last month that searches for Mr. Wurzelbacher's state records had been improperly authorized by Ms. Jones-Kelley, who, coincidentally, was more than a passive supporter of Mr. Obama's campaign. Somehow, the report found no evidence of the data search being connected to political activity. If you can believe that, you can believe Joe the Plumber is a real plumber.
Even prior to the inspector general's findings, Gov. Strickland had placed Ms. Jones-Kelley on a 30-day, unpaid suspension. Based on her nearly $142,000 annual salary, her losses could quickly eclipse Mr. Wurzelbacher's last known annual gross income of about $40,000, but it would take some time to equal his bald ambition.
If you can believe Joe the Plumber, he's on the verge of buying his boss's plumbing business and raking in at least $250,000 a year, which would subject him to Mr. Obama's vilified tax increase.
Mr. Wurzelbacher could be a real American success story, all right. The son of welfare parents who grew up to become a tax scofflaw with liens on his property, his wisdom holds that a proposed 3 percent tax increase for the country's highest earners is socialistic. Failing to complete an apprentice program or meet the requirements to hold his own plumber's license, he must work under others' personal supervision. But he can question the president-elect's loyalty and be taken so seriously that he just may be a candidate for Congress in 2010.
Mr. Wurzelbacher could have his foot in the door to a political career with the pending downfall of Ms. Jones-Kelley, who proved that a degree doesn't make a lawyer smarter than a plumber without a license.
The Ohio Republican Party called for Mr. Jones-Kelley's firing. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio called on the governor and the legislature to take action to guarantee no further violations of citizens' privacy. Maybe Joe the Plumber can fix that leak.
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