Home Contact Us

Serving Over 20,000 US Medical Transcriptionists

Yes, Joe was an actual plumber...

Posted By: Mythbuster on 2009-03-06
In Reply to: I never understood the whole thing - why

...living in Ohio, throwing a football with his son in the front yard when the whole Obamarama came down his street and Obama invited Joe to ask a question. Joe asked: If you are elected, are you going to raise my taxes? Obama answered: It's good to spread the wealth around and give everyone the advantages you've had.

Joe was obviously planted in his own front yard just to sandbag Obama with a trick question and entrap him into revealing the true agenda. Republicans are so devious!

What happened after this was extremely interesting. Media started to investigate Joe as though he were a candidate, not just Joe Citizen.

They unearthed and published the information that he was not even a licensed plumber. (In fact, no license was legally required because he was an employee, although he was working toward buying the plumbing business.) His trash was stolen from in front of his house - a standard investigative technique. Joe's driving record was accessed - illegally - and details made public. I think I even remember hearing he owed some money to the IRS.

His OJFS records were accessed several times (Ohio Job and Family Services are the ones who administer unemployment, child support, etc.) and, mysteriously, information about his divorce and child support ended up in the news. The (dem) head of OJFS then tried to cover by saying this is common practice anytime a person becomes a celebrity. However, this was easily disproved. (The woman was allowed to resign. She and two assistants are the ones being sued.)

All for having the poor judgment to ask a question of Obama, when invited to. A lot has been said over the yeas about Nixon and his enemies list, but our new president is someone not to be crossed, not by a Joe Citizen, certainly not by a Limbaugh.

Get 'em, Joe!

Complete Discussion Below:

marks the location of current message within thread

Set 'em up, Joe.... - Mythbuster
- I never understood the whole thing - why
  - Yes, Joe was an actual plumber... - Mythbuster
- Yeah! Joe for Congress. He's my guy! - nm

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

Other related messages found in our database

If you had seen the actual
video tape of him saying that.....he was obviously joking. He himself said that he was sure that joke would be taken out of context.......and he was right.

Actually....this is the actual poll...
While Republicans and Democrats predictably favor their party�s candidate by overwhelming margins, the experience gap among voters unaffiliated with either party is even narrower than the national totals. Forty-two percent (42%) say Obama has better experience to be president, but 37% say Palin does.

These are unaffiliated voters....37% of which say she has more experience to be President. That is just a 5% difference...not 61%.

Ahem.

It is not so much the actual hunting that I
am truly opposed of, it is the tactics used. If you are going to hunt them, then truly hunt them. Don't sit in a plane in the dead of winter and shoot at a defenseless animal like that. Get out of your friggin' plane, get on the ground and hunt. I come from a very long line of hunters and none of them would ever consider that truly hunting.

I am vegan, so I yes I am against the slaughter of animals. But, I do realize that sometimes it is necessary in certain circumstances to thin out a herd so they don't suffer in extremely harsh conditions.

I also realize that people hunt so they have food, that there are still people who get their primary meat this way and cannot afford to buy it in a store. I have had many different kinds of animal flesh before I quit eating it, and I do not pass judgment to those who hunt for food. I do oppose using the term "hunt" for the mass slaughter of animals. If you are truly against cruelty, like you say you are, then you would realize that aerial hunting of these wolves is cruel. Did you watch that video and see how the wolf is suffering? That is cruelty defined.

There probably isn't an actual video.........sm
since this was an interview given to a newspaper and not a television station. I'm sure it was only audio taped, hence the picture where the video would be. Why do believe that it is not his voice or that he is not actually saying what we all hear he is saying?

Thank you! There are so many actual important
issues to be discussing rather than wasting time on their silly fairy tale while the economy crumbles.

Those of us with actual brains, & can think for ourselves,
to make our decisions for us, tell us what to think or how to be, tell us whom to judge, or how to vote. From back in the days of the Crusades, religion has always been about a few men controlling other people. And they learned a long time ago that those who are most easily controlled are those with feeble minds and no free will.

SP's actual speech to secessionists

http://mediamatters.org/items/200809030019?f=h_latest

Please site an actual instance where anyone...sm
was banned from WEARING a religious symbol such as a cross, star of David or any other religious symbol to school.

I went to the actual Il. gov. website and read the - sm
actual bill, not just the parts that this sweetness-light.com website put on there. The whole bill starts out saying that parents first have to sign a consent form in order for their children to participate. As you are reading through the bill it states, "All course material and instruction shall be age and developmentally appropriate."

Sam, do you honestly think he is supporting teaching the same sex ed that you might get in high school to Kindergartners. I mean really.

You are always mentioning these leftist sites like Huffington, well this is clearly an all conservative site. I didn't go through it all, but it doesn't seem to be very objective.

my actual reason is more selfish than this...
I want to keep as much of my paycheck as I can to pay for the carpal tunnel release that I will eventually need!

Read The Actual Bill
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s2433/text

If you're so concerned, one would think you'd actually read the bill as written, rather than rely on someone else with a clear agenda to do your interpreting for you.

Gimme a break.

What actual credible plot was NOT
many bombs struck your neighborhood? Girl, you need to get a life! Oh, that's right, you said you did already. Transcribing 3500 lines a day, then the rest of a day stirring the pot on an internet forum just isn't my idea of a life.

i would be the one losing my ACTUAL HOME
UNFORTUNATELY, I TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and i pay my mortgage, even if i was one of the ones that they should not have given a loan to. and i have an ARM, and an interest only loan, which i pay more to each month, etc. etc.... BUT if i was in default, maybe i'd get some help...

and you cannot deny that Clinton put this into action
and that McCain or Bush did not foresee it and ask for an overhaul.
no matter who is at fault WHO IS THE ONE THAT TRIED TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT LONG BEFORE THIS MESS???

I did - and I'm the one who provided the actual quote
Look. Just get this straight. If you know anything about Boehner at all, you will know perfectly well that he does not support the notion that cold rooms, sleep deprivation and caterpillars add up to torture.

Intellectual honesty is a wonderful thing. Waiting to "pounce" on any fortuitous language that suits your purpose when you know very well that's what you're doing is NOT intellectual honesty and speaks ill of the character of those who practice this form of charade. I certainly don't respect you for it, although I do respect honesty in political discourse. I wish it weren't so rare.

Pastime is an actual noun.
It means a way to pass the time (not something that happened in a past time.) The hyphen (that little horizontal line [-] thing) is wrong. No need for thanks, always glad to help an ESL Transcriptionist sharpen her skills.

Actual entry in Reagan's diary

Beneath is an actual quote that Reagan wrote about George "W" in his

diaries, recently edited by author Doug Brinkley and published by Harper

Collins

"A moment I've been dreading. George brought his n'er-do-well son around

this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one

who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking

shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a

real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll

hire him as a contributing Editor or something. That looks like easy

work."

From the REAGAN DIARIES------entry dated May 17, 1986.

If you watched the actual show you might have understood it
Glenn Beck actually cares about what is going on in this country. He is giving the everyday American a chance to let our voices be heard.

If you go to his website (which I'm sure you wouldn't do) he talks about "Project 9.12". He talks about the 9 principles and 12 values. He's allowing people like you and me a chance to let our voices be heard. The country is going down a dark hole and if it doesn't get fixed we will never see the light again (AIG is just one of the many things that will bring it down).

Unlike whiny Olberlame or Mathpukes. Those two make my skin crawl. I can take Rachel Maddow to a certain extent but then she gets on her whiny role too. Your viewpoint of any other news station other than My Socialist News Butt Channel (MSNBC) is so pathetic in it's writing. If your going to go down the road of blatant money-grubbing, media hogs who pray on the pathetic then you are talking about the liberal media stations. Talk about praying on the pathetic ignor@nt. You want to see hate-spewing turn on the MSNBC crowd. When things don't go their way it's like watching a bunch of rabid dogs foaming at the mouth attaching anyone who doesn't agree with them.

Maybe it would be good to actually watch the Beck show before commenting on it because then you would at least might remotely possibly know what your talking about. Otherwise it looks like another agent of MSNBC is filtering on this board.

I guess you think that having people who are liberal on as guests and treating them with respect, letting them speak what's on their mind and saying. "Okay, I'll give you that. I may not agree with you, but your entitled to your opinions" I guess you consider that hateful spewing??? I don't get it. You go to MSNBC (watched that station through the Bush years because my viewpoints were more aligned with theirs), but after awhile you just gotta step back and say wait a minute, that's not fair no matter whether I don't like the other side or not. There is a time when you have to start thinking for yourself. Fox channel does that. They present issues and don't tell you how you should be thinking. They let you decide for yourself. They give both sides an equal chance. But if your one of those liberal loving all democrats do nothing wrong and all republicans do nothing right, and you only get your news from the liberal stations, then yes, what you wrote is true about the "pathetic uneducated half-wits that hang on every word of their hateful spewing garbage" by Mathpukes and Olberlame and the likes of that station.

In case you don't know, America is waking up and turning to Fox and turning off MSNBC, CNN and others because we want to hear the truth. Not the mean-spiritic spew that comes from those stations.

BTW - Fox has 1,217,000 viewers compared to the socialist MSNBC station of 480,000 and Communist News Network of 633,000. That's more than twice as many people. At least I feel like I'm in good company.

Here is the link to the actual letter on the boston globe...
website.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2008/08/31/son_sees_fathers_handiwork_in_convention/

Well, it certainly gives me more pause than abstinence and sex education.

BTW, no the actual sneak in the draft registration thing
nm

Whatever. How about addressing the actual issues I raised in my post for a change? (NT)

Just Like Joe the Plumber...
Her 15 minutes of fame.

Joe the Plumber

How many of us employ attorneys? Do you have a publicist? Are you in the middle of negotiating a book deal? There must be thousands of middle class citizens trying to close a contract on a country and western CD release. Thinking about running for Congress? Stumping for the reds, declaring in no uncertain terms Obama is Marxist for reasons you cannot put your finger on and is anti-Israel for reasons you cannot explain? I can't decide who is better at the snow job...McCain with his Joe the Plumber get-out-the-vote chant or Joe the Plumber with his 15-minute opportunism. Judgment? Vet deficit? Makes a mockery of his own campaign, still in search of a coherent message and no identifiable theme in sight.

Exactly right!...Joe, the Plumber
himself said that he was CALLED and told to go this this rallye!
I wonder what else they told him?

Joe the Plumber?

We need to get out of cartoon land and realize that we've made the right decision.

How many posts have you seen where our wages are falling? Can we fix it? Yes we can and not by giving in to the criticism by the republicans with statements like "I'll qualify for food stamps."

I don't think any sane person would say wishing Bush would die and burn in hell is an actual death

...particulary in the context of a heated political forum.

I think people are needing to create some drama to justify their actions.

The point is that both sides are naughty at times. I do notice more personal attacks by the C's though and I looked at the posts pretty carefully. The L's seem to rely on political/lifestyle issues to upset the C's and the C's just seem to respond with barking orders and making personal attacks (liberals are sissies, etc.)

The difference is that only the L's seem to be deleted and chastised on a regular basis. Isn't this rather unfair and un-American. It's called a double-standard and is not a pretty sight (and makes this not a pretty site)!!!!

That Joe guy isn't even a licensed plumber
He is thinking of buying a plumbing business. You don't have to be licensed in Ohio. You can say plumbers are not rich but he is planning on making over $250K. Get your head out of your...

The plumber would be making $250 k and
it would be 36 percent tax and 39 percent, which is 3 percent more, on the amount over 250K. That's pretty rich. Keep on typing, dope.

Poor Joe the Plumber is going to have
to worry about paying taxes. Turns out he doesn't have a plumber's license nor does his employer which is required by the county. No license, no work, no taxes. Poor Joe.

Google Joe the plumber 40,000 and
nm

Joe The Plumber Rocks

Funny how this plumber was the go-to guy until he struck a cord with "regular Americans." The drive-bys loathe him, and also have no clue how hard he works. When he dropped the "S" (socialism) card, they went totally nuts.

This is a perfect example of elitism. They just don't get it that he wants to decide how he'll spend his own money. For those of you who are too insecure to make those decisions, go ahead, but leave the rest of us alone!

Are y'all really so pathetic that you don't trust your own judgement as to how to spend your own money? Look at how well the gov't handles things already: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the mail service, etc.?

Unbelievable!

You know well I was not talking about Joe the NON-plumber!
/

What about his comment to Joe the Plumber?
I mean I know Joe has been discredited, but Obama did say he was going to take some from Joe to help out those below him. That's basically the same thing isn't it?

Like I've said before, I have no issue with helping legitimately needy people. But there are so many people out there who are just LAZY and unwilling to work and having more and more children just to get more foodstamps that it's not fair. We don't need to tax more. We need to take a good long hard look at our welfare program and the participants and weed out the ones who are just using the system.

Last weekend we had a community clean up day at our church. Our church is in the middle of a trailer park community with a lot of Hispanic, black, and white members, all low income, all living in suboptimal living conditions. We went around and picked up trash on the road and helped people clean trash out of their yards. Our hope was to help the community take pride in where they live and to come alongside one another to make it a cleaner and safer place for them and their children. Out of at least 100 residents in that area, maybe 3 helped us. Most of them just watched, and some even got upset when we couldn't get everything out of their yards. Instead of coming out and working alongside us, some acted like it was owed to them. Now of course being a church our main hope was to build relationships and eventually teach them about Jesus, but our short term hope was just to build a sense of community in this down trodden area.

I stopped and talked to one girl, about my age, who has two small children, 3 and 1, I believe. She asked me why I didn't have a child yet. I told her that besides the fact that I'm still in school, we can't afford to have kids yet. She said "Oh don't worry! If you can't afford it the state will take care of them for you!" She told me she doesn't work, but her boyfriend does. They won't get married because she might lose her "benefits". I offered to set her up with one of the girls in my youth class that babysits if she wanted to get a part time job, but she doesn't want to work. And I don't think it was because she wants to be home with her children. At any rate, welfare is not supposed to be a way for you to be a stay at home mom.

That line of thinking is all too common nowadays. Would my husband and I like to have a child? Yes, definitely. I have always wanted to be a young mom (not like 16, but early 20s). But it would be selfish of us to have a child knowing we can't afford to take care of one right now.

We have to stop enabling this laziness and lack of ambition. I think Obama should at least hold off on the taxing if he becomes president until there is a thorough investigation into our welfare system. If he wants to create more jobs, hire a slew of caseworkers to work one on one with these families who have been on welfare for so long and find out WHY. It's supposed to be a helping hand in times of need, not a way of living.

Another thing I fear is the fact that with a democratic congress and president, very soon it may be so a preacher cannot preach what is in the Bible in a church. As a Christian, I'm sure you know that the Bible speaks against other false religions. From what I understand with talking with my father-in-law a.k.a. my pastor, there are issues being discussed that will limit what he can say from the podium. Now my FIL is not a hateful man by any means, but he is going to preach straight from the Bible, and he isn't just going to skip parts that may offend someone else. I don't know the whole story behind this, but if it's true, we may be in for more trouble then we imagine.

All we can pray for is that God will work in the heart of whomever gets into the white house and our senate and congress. But the more and more I see, I truly believe judgment is coming upon us.

or a plumber in hot pants
:)

plumber lied about

his plans to buy a business as he had no money. No plumbing license. Owed back taxes. Was on welfare. He was a fictious dupe who tried to grab the spotlight for his own fortune. How's that book and record deal going?

Please describe the actual physical threat that you allege was made on this internet chat board.

Thank you.

Joe the Plumber had to get back in the spotlight -
http://www.comcast.net/news/video/958491392/plumberappalledbymccainposition/

Then go be a plumber and stop bitching about
!!

For all those O lovers who jumped on the plumber

Obama stated today, while trying to turn the plumber thing back towards McCain as if he NEVER said "spread the wealth" this.......

"How many of you know a plumber that makes half a million dollars?". McCain never said that, Obama did. Obama told the plumber that the business he was looking at buying which may or may not make 250K would be taxed to "spread the wealth" around. Boy, he's desperate now.

Now for all those O lovers who have had such a hatred all of a sudden of a "rich" plumber, how ya gonna back peddle on that one? You and Obama need to get on the same page...... now even Obama says a plumber can't make 250K! What a joke he is.

uhh... Joe the Plumber is not running for VP, leave
nm

Plumber and back pedaling. s/m

I am not about to back pedal. 1) Anyone knows that a plumber doesn't make $250,000 annually. 2) Anyone who has ever paid a plumber knows that a PLUMBING CONTRACTOR could make $250,000 and more.

Joe the Plumber doesn't look or act smart enough to be a plumbing contractor and making $40,000 annually it's not likely he could buy a plumbing business. But then on the other hand, my plumber son laughs and says, "all you have to know to be a plumber is that sh!t doesn't run uphill and that payday is on Friday." LOL Hearing JM talk, one would think "his buddy, Joe the Plumber" was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

If SP and Joe The Plumber have saved McCain, God help us all! n/m
!

Plumber does not mitigate fact that McC has yet
in debates/stump. That's why O is leading among middle class voters in the polls. Joe the plumber was not exactly dealing with a full deck. Democrat party embodies a huge chunk of HONEST hard-working class Americans and the next time the party vets a poster boy, they might try to come up with something more plausible and bust-proof in terms of verifiable background.

The unlicensed one posed the question of tax. Raising taxes and giving tax cuts are American as apple pie and are a practices employed by both political parties. No need to go bonkers over the "S" card since it is a word-mince game conjured up by a desperate campaign to muddy the econmic waters and run the clock out in terms of avoiding McClone's 90% W support and the mirror image he projects to voters in terms of the current economic crisis.

Aren't we full of paradox this morning? First we're deadbeats, then we are elite. This camp cannot demonstrate even the most rudimentary understanding of basic economic concepts, unless of course that "E" card is meant as a slam toward educated folks who make them feel insecure and defensive.

We do not need your advice on what we should be examining. What we are looking at here are our mounting credit card bills, some of which are hiking interest rates into the 22% category, our frozen banks and their stocks being bought up with tax bucks, the foreclosed homes that are dotting our landscape and bringing down our property values, bail-out schemes that tax our great-grandchildren, AIG spa parties and pheasant hunts, the stock market roller coaster, 401Ks diminished by 38% in value, skyrocketing cost of food, job losses, plunging retail index going into the holiday season, rising unemployment, job losses, stagnant wages, inaccessible health care coverage, obscene costs of medical care and prescription drugs...all in the afermath of trickle down.

This Joe the Plumber is supposed to represent

Well this is a quote from Joe the Plumber.

"The media's worried about whether I've paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America," Wurzelbacher told the former Republican presidential hopeful on his show, "Huckabee."

This is what is so funny. In Joe's eyes "taxes" are silly things. So, you see he's not worried at all about his taxes being raised IF he were to purchase a company. He thinks taxes are silly and have nothing to do with America. So, you don't think we're footing this Joe the Plumber's bill already????? He can't even pay his own taxes. How will he ever purchase a company worth more than $250,000.00 with an "outstanding" bill?

Obama said...from his own mouth...to Joe the Plumber....
when Joe said, "Why do you want to tax me more?" to which Obama replied: "It's not that I want to tax you more. I think the guys below Joe deserve a shot too." I agree with that..just not the way Obama wants. They deserve the SAME shot JOE had. Work several years to GET to the point where you can buy a business...like JOE has. Don't TAX the JOES of the world MORE so you can cut people who have not worked that hard a check for which they did NOTHING. That is not fair, gourdpainter. No way is that FAIR.

Why not have a straight across the board percentage tax, no deductions, no NOTHING. Yes, the rich would pay more than the poor because they make more, but it would be FAIR. It would not be taxing any class of people at a HIGHER rate and divying it out to the ones below them who did NOTHING to earn it.

Obama is a socialist. He says so in his plans, he said so to Joe the Plumber. Why aren't you listening?
:-)

AMEN COREY!!!! We need more like you and Joe the plumber. nm
nm

Did Joe the Plumber ever pay his back taxes?
nm

here was Joe the Plumber and then Rick Santelli. nm
xxx

Joe the plumber not licensed, makes $40,000 a year,
a registered republican. What a difference a day makes.

There is no relevance to explain. Joe the unlicensed plumber
nm

McCain has 2 gimmicks Palin and Joe the Plumber sm
Joe is not even licensed and he makes $40K a year. He will benefit under Barack's plan but he is such a redneck he is brainwashed and probably watches Fox. He was not just discovered either.

McCain cheapens his campaign with the plumber sm
McCain Pals With Plumber, Cheapens Campaign: Margaret Carlson

Commentary by Margaret Carlson

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- You'd hope a process that we've had 40 years to improve would be better than our presidential debates. We've tweaked around the edges, and one moderator beats a panel of them. Bob Schieffer did a superior job and was persistent at Wednesday night's debate. Yet no moderator is ever going to get the candidates to talk to each other, much less look one another in the eye.

Why not no moderator? It worked for the Lincoln-Douglas debates, where people stood in the hot sun for hours to listen.

The most dispiriting thing to come out of the debate was the morning after. I woke to see Joe Wurzelbacher's street in Holland, Ohio, lit up like Times Square with network and cable satellite trucks clogging the place.

I thought the press was beyond 23 mentions of Joe the Plumber by one candidate and three by the other, while Asian markets were dropping 10 percent and the Dow has been diving.

Unless he starts making courtesy calls to fix the running toilets of the journalists making him famous, let's relegate Joe the Plumber back to the playroom with Bob the Builder or the 15- minute hall of fame with Harry and Louise and Ross Perot's crazy aunt in the attic.

Here's the reason for Joe: McCain has no argument left except that no one should have to pay taxes, and that Obama isn't one of us.

Distasteful Tactics

He gave up the experience argument by choosing Sarah Palin. By his own admission, McCain was never on top of the economy, and his performance since the financial crisis began, lurching from one pronouncement to another, proved his self-assessment right.

What McCain has instead are the distasteful tactics pressed on him by his consultants, the very ones who defamed him in his 2000 race for the presidency.

That's where ``Obama is palling around with terrorists'' comes from. It's why in the final debate, more time was spent on a radical bomb-thrower from the ླྀs, William Ayers, than Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his so-far-unsuccessful attempts to stop a market meltdown.

At first, I thought McCain was going to drop Ayers when he said he didn't care about ``an old, washed-up terrorist.'' Then he pivoted and demanded to know ``the full extent'' of his relationship with Obama.

Happy to Oblige

Obama was happy to oblige. Ayers, who committed his violent acts when Obama was a boy, is not and never has been involved in his campaign. Obama condemned his ``despicable acts'' and pointed out that he once served on a board with Ayers that was filled with Republican luminaries and funded by another one, Walter Annenberg. Thanks to McCain, Obama got to explain that before 30 million people.

McCain also gave Obama a chance to answer another charge. McCain is trying to make an oak out of Acorn, a community- organizing group that runs voter-registration drives. McCain said Acorn was about to perpetrate the biggest voter fraud in history, ``destroying the fabric of democracy.''

Acorn doesn't register voters; only state officials can do that. The false names collected are easy to spot. It's an urban myth that Donald Duck and Harry Potter end up voting. The ones that slip through are infinitesimal.

Old Hat

Obama explained his prior association. ``I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department'' enforcing the Illinois motor-voter law.

It's old hat for Republicans to cry voter fraud just the way Democrats cry voter suppression for purged lists, long lines and election-day challenges. If I show up on the list as Margaret B. Carlson but I've since dropped the B and have a driver's license that says Margaret Carlson, I might be turned away.

Most of McCain's anger was non-verbal -- in his tense, coiled body, eye-rolls, sniffing, and forced smiles. He had to know Ayers wasn't going to work. But there comes a moment when a candidate has to fluff up the base or find himself lonely.

Already, McCain has lost the support of some brand-name conservatives with his choice of Palin as a running mate. The latest is author Christopher Buckley, who had to resign from National Review, the magazine his father, William Buckley, founded, for his apostasy.

Following Rush

With Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity attacking Ayers for three weeks, McCain would have been fired by his own party before the election if he'd held back.

I'm not sure he can count on Palin anymore. She told Limbaugh she had nothing to lose, and she's acting like it. She was openly critical of McCain's decision to pull out of Michigan, and insisted that she and her husband would happily campaign there.

She's supposed to wield a hatchet, not throw bombs. The one genuine emotional moment in the debate came when McCain said how saddened he was about Representative John Lewis's reaction to the hateful language at Palin's rallies. Obama agreed that Lewis went too far in coupling McCain with George Wallace, but the rebuke stung.

Only a short time ago, McCain had named Lewis as one of his heroes.

Those writing McCain's obituary (which I'm not; he lost the debates not the election) wrongly say that Palin wins no matter what. The campaign has revealed a petty politician who misused her office, got revenge on her enemies, turned on fellow Republicans when it suited her ambitions, and violated ethics laws by trying to get her brother-in-law fired.

McCain's best chance of winning is by doing what he did when his campaign was pronounced dead last year. Fire people. Drop the cheap shots. Go out on your own and barnstorm the country. Be serious about the broken country President George W. Bush is leaving us. Reclaim the patrimony of the McCains and win -- or lose -- with honor.