NYT Columnist Wants To Keep Joe the Plumber From Publishing Book, Says Joe is ‘A No Good Citizen’
Posted on December 11, 2008
-By Warner Todd Huston
Talk about arrogance, but apparently New York Times Columnist Timothy Egan wants to stop Joe the Plumber from being allowed to have his book published and calls the government oppressed blue collar man a “no good citizen” and a “no good plumber.” Arrogantly, Egan imagines that Joe somehow doesn’t deserve to have a book deal.
Egan imagines himself more qualified than Joe to write a book and in his column Egan asks Joe if he wants him to fix a leaky toilet? He then haughtily replies, “I didn’t think so.” You see, Egan thinks he is smarter than anyone as low as a Joe the Plumber.
And I don’t want you writing books. Not when too many good novelists remain unpublished. Not when too many extraordinary histories remain unread. Not when too many riveting memoirs are kicked back at authors after 10 years of toil. Not when voices in Iran, North Korea or China struggle to get past a censor’s gate.
Sounds like sour grapes here from ol’ Tim! Sounds to me like Timothy Egan has had a book or two of his own rejected by the publishing industry! Egan can’t stand the fact that someone like Joe the Plumber, a man that he obviously despises for his lower status in life, has found the fortune of a moment in time that offers a book deal. This is the sort of upper class twitism that so infects the extreme left of the American illiterati, isn’t it?
After Egan dismisses (without reading, by the way) a Joe the Plumber book, he starts in with the name calling.
Joe, a k a Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, was no good as a citizen, having failed to pay his full share of taxes, no good as a plumber, not being fully credentialed, and not even any good as a faux American icon. Who could forget poor John McCain at his most befuddled, calling out for his working-class surrogate on a day when Joe stiffed him.
Yep, just pure, unadulterated, overly emotional, grade school playground taunting. If this tripe is all he has to offer, maybe we are seeing why Timmy’s books have been returned unread by all those publishers?
Naturally, Mr. sour grapes also found a way to smack at Governor Palin, too. It should be noted that no one has elected Egan to anything nor offered the second highest office in the land to this stuck-up, pseudo intellectual. It must hurt him pretty badly.
Unsurprisingly, Timmy Egan uses this whiny affair as an opportunity to pump up Barack Obama’s supposedly wonderful writing abilities as evidenced by his two memoirs.
But, here is the thing. Few politicians or those momentarily newsworthy ever write their own books. Almost all of them have ghostwriters. Hillary Cllinton had one and there really isn’t any proof that Obama actually wrote his own books. It is just assumed that he did. But one thing is sure and it is something that is already widely known. Joe the Plumber’s forth coming book was not written by Joe Wurzelbacher alone. Joe has a co-author that is clearly acknowledged, unlike Hillary’s ghostwriter who has been hidden from view and made out like she doesn’t even exist.
So, what we have here is Timothy Eagan, imagining that publishing is a zero sum gain and when one person is published someone else must be denied, complaining that a “real” writer is somewhere not being published because Joe the Plumber is being published. But what Egan cynically refuses to reveal to his gullible readers is that a “real” writer IS being published along WITH Joe’s book. Joe’s co-author is named Thomas N. Tabback and it will be Tabback doing the heavy lifting. No one is pretending that Joe has written this book on his own. No one but Timothy Egan, that is.
So, Egan’s whole point is sort of mooted, here. Egan’s snide slap at Joe is, in the end, just meaningless, partisan hatred to no real purpose. Well, no purpose, perhaps, but to make Egan feel better about himself. That and it is a way for him to get the snarky, congratulatory back slapping he’s imagines he’ll get at those far left cocktail parties that he finally expects to be invited to. Sadly, in all his vast writing experience, Egan seems never to have run across the word “humility.”
Mr Egan has revealed in other interviews that he’s “had some really depressing times in journalism over the last five or six years.” So, it isn’t surprising that he once again forces us all to endure another example of his agonizingly maladjusted psyche. The man just cannot stand it when anyone else has success, especially if it is someone with an opposing political ideal.
And in that he is nothing special and is as common a lefty as they come.
(Photo by Don Gronning/Daily Record)
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4 Responses to “NYT Columnist Wants To Keep Joe the Plumber From Publishing Book, Says Joe is ‘A No Good Citizen’”
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Like all Leftys, Tim Egan’s mommy fed him a nonstop diet of “how precious, smart, and special you are!” If Timmy’s inner child doesn’t feel superior to the great mass of others at least once a second, he probably grabs for the pipe, the pills, or the bottle.
Amen.
I for one am tired of the hate and dishonesty, the depravity and dishonesty from the Left. It’s sad how these unhinged moonbats trot out Republican misdoings as if it compares to the bereft Left. Blagojevich is many things, including the poster-boy for Liberals. His morality is their morality.
Heck, just watch the auto bailout. Democrats are going against the wishes of their constituents (those who voted them in) because they are obligated to their primary constituents and primary contributors, the Unions (those that bought their influence). No one is objecting! No one is railing against the obvious corruption! And if that wasn’t enough, they compound the insult by taking the voters taxes and throw it away to appease the Unions. Simply amazing.
No doubt in coming days we’ll learn just how close the Blago scandal comes to the Empty Suit. Gird your loins.
Gees, Warner. Is everything about Republicans vs Democrats for you? Consevatives vs Liberals?
Yes Eagan no doubt votes Dem but his column wasn’t about Joe the Plumber’s politics. It was about the degradation of our culture, which is something conservatives frequently lament. His complaint just used Joe’s book deal as an example of the US obsession with personalities and how they consistently win out over substance. Are you excited about book deals offered to Paris Hilton, Britney Spears exhusband, etc. Joe is in this group — famous for being famous but nothing else.
Eagan IS smarter than Joe the Plumber. He is also an award winning author who can sell any book project he wants just by picking up the phone.
As far as ghost writers go, there isn’t any question that Obama wrote his first book. Publishers don’t assign ghost writers to books for unknowns. It’s too expensive, and in the case of Dreams of My Father, written when Obama was 33, the ghost writer would have to have had to be paid more than Obama and would certainly have been credited (that’s industry standard).
Paying a ghost writer wouldn’t have made sense given that the book didn’t have much chance of selling well back then (most books published lose money).
What’s the point of fabricating divisions when you could be looking for positive themes to write about?
stfu axel and stop defending this guy’s pro-obama bias