Joe the Adviser

A person appears in the public eye every once in a while, who gets more than the 15 minutes of fame the ghost of Andy Warhol allotted to all Americans.

These people, more often than not, have no discernible talent or contribution to humanity and no real relevance. They are just there, existing, outlasting all rational expectations and wishes. In short, they are completely useless and will not go away, no matter how dissonant their existence seems to be with intelligent thought and reason.

Until 2008, the best example of this phenomenon was Paris Hilton, who, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, is famous simply because she is famous. Today, though, the dictionary picture for “inexplicable celebrity” belongs to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.

Yeah, we’re still writing about Joe the Plumber.

Evidently, Joe was the featured guest Tuesday of the Conservative Working Group, a weekly strategic planning meeting of Republican staffers in Washington.

According to preliminary reports, he planned to focus his talk on the economic rescue package, which, shockingly enough, he doesn’t like much.

I’m really not sure what Republicans see in this guy or what they’re trying to do with him. What they’re succeeding in doing, though, is committing acts of high political comedy. This guy is a buffoon. We shouldn’t know who he is. Every time he opens his mouth, he says something ridiculous.

But they keep bringing the heat, and I say we should let them.

Take, for example, this winner he came up with in mid-January while in Israel covering the Gaza war for a conservative Web site. Evidently the experience led him to doubt the First Amendment.

“I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war,” our hero said. “I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting.”

Yes, that is an exact quote. No, I don’t know what media would do other than report. I don’t think anyone, including him, knows what he’s talking about – among other things, he seems to be unaware at this point that he is a member of the media.

I don’t know why anyone would be particularly interested in what he has to say, given his total lack of knowledge about anything – I haven’t even seen evidence that he’s a competent plumber.

But I think that anyone who supports the Democratic Party should be thrilled that the Republicans are still giving him credence.

After all, the longer they let a failed political tool, a glorified mascot, stand as the party’s idea man, the longer they shape themselves to appeal to the Joe the Plumbers of the world – the longer it will be before they have any real political clout.

Because I highly doubt that the people who ran the best political campaign in recent history are particularly worried about any strategies that come from a guy who, as far as evidence shows, knows nothing about politics whatsoever.

Honestly, though, I just want to get my hands on his country album.