Joe The Plumber's Friend

Joe the Plumber was a no-show at a McClain rally in Ohio. When the plumber’s friend called Joe’s name, nobody answered. Joe was out trying to trade his 15 minutes of fame for a recording contract as a country singer. Joe came to public attention when he engaged Barack Obama in a discussion of tax policy in front of network television cameras. “I just happened to be here and Barack Obama happened to show up,” Joe explained. Joe said he wanted to buy the plumbing company he worked for but would be prevented from doing it because of Obama’s tax plan. Ignore the fact that Joe did not have the down payment to buy the company even if he could find a sub-prime, no doc loan somewhere. “I asked the question but I still got a tap dance ...almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.,” Joe said. Joe the Plumber was also mentioned prominently in the last Presidential debate between Obama and McCain. After the debate, Joe called Obama’s plans “one step closer to socialism.” He also supported the view that "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." I think maybe it’s time to just move to a different bar stool.

In our democracy, people love to believe one person’s opinion is as good as another’s. However, the U.S. Constitution only guarantees your freedom to express your opinion and protection from government reprisals for that expression. Even if the media catapults you to national fame, because it did not have anything easier to do that day, your opinion may yet fall into that category of anatomical comparison that everybody has one, and they all stink.

Lester Maddox, governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971, was the son of an Atlanta steelworker and followed his father in that job. Maddox eventually opened the Pickrick Cafeteria on Hemphill Ave., near the campus of Georgia Tech and not far from the Atlantic Steel Mill neighborhood where he was raised and next door to the less economically grounded neighborhood in which I grew up. Maddox, working side-by-side with his wife and children, made a success of the restaurant. For years, Maddox advertised his specialties, skillet-fried chicken, ax-handles, and segregationist politics, in double-wide columns entitled Pickrick Says in the Saturday Atlanta newspaper. During those days of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, many segregationists found refuge and comfort at the Pickrick Cafeteria and in the words Maddox published in the bought and paid for rants of his weekend newspaper advertisements. The ax-handles Maddox sold at Pickrick were widely known by the nickname “N…. Knockers.”

In September of 1963, four Sundy School children were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. I worked for The Atlanta Journal at the time as the most junior of young reporters. I helped put together the reaction story about the bombing, a collection of quotes from elected officials, business leaders, clergy, civil rights groups, anybody famous with something to say in response to a big news event. For the first, last, and only time in my life, I spoke to the chicken restauranteur who sold ax handles. What was his reaction? Did he condemn the domestic terrorists from the Klu Klux Klan who had murdered the four little girls? No. He blamed the victims, said they had “brought it on themselves.” With righteous indignation, I reported his remarks in the newspaper. Nonetheless, it still haunts me that uncritical and easy media publication of this sort of ignorance was what made Lester Maddox Governor of Georgia.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter