Joe the Plumber is everywhere. All the media are talking about him. He’s become a celebrity in his own right. John McCain even called him to apologize for getting him involved in the sleazy art of politics and then invited him to join the Republican campaign efforts. I don’t really think Joe the Plumber will help John McCain that much. But the presidential hopeful seems to think so.

There are issues with Joe the Plumber, as has been pointed out elsewhere.

• He owes back taxes
• He’s not a licensed plumber
• He doesn’t make enough money to buy the business he said he’d like to buy
• He’s a registered Republican but says he isn’t sure who he’ll vote for, though he doesn’t like Barack Obama’s tax plan because “it will hurt somebody else”

These problems have all been identified, but there are two issues that have not been identified where Joe the Plumber is concerned.

He is on the record as saying that he supports the Iraq War, but is there a record showing that he has volunteered to participate in it. He’s 34 years old and the McCain campaign machine is calling him an American hero and a “typical American.” Is he typical?

He may or may not be a typical American, but he is a typical Republican. It’s OK to support an unjust war if someone else is the one who has to do the dirty work. It’s not Joe the Plumber’s responsibility, after all, to risk his life on a losing cause.

The second problem with Joe the Plumber not yet identified is Obama’s tax plan - the one he doesn’t like - is a plan devised to help get the country’s fiscal policy back on track after the Bush Administration took us from a surplus to a deficit. Republicans talk about small government, class warfare, and keeping your own money, but they don’t much care for responsible government. And Joe the Plumber has aligned himself with these people.

Folks, John McCain is the one playing class warfare. He has supported the Bush tax policies, which have given tax breaks to the rich while requiring the poor and middle class to work harder to pay for the unjust war that Bush and McCain wanted and the rich have profited from. If that isn’t class warfare then I don’t know what is. And Joe the Plumber, only making $40,000 a year, isn’t in the class that has been winning the war. His friendship with the Republican Party is akin to a slave in the South in 1860 saying that he is pro-slavery and doesn’t want freedom.

Hey, Joe, McCain’s policies hurt other people. Why are you supporting them?