As happens sometimes when left without plans on a weekend, I have found myself arguing with goofballs in right-wing Internet communities about the meaning of Joe the Plumber. I’m not proud of it, but these things happen.

Now, I kinda like the guy. I think he’s a moron, for the most part, and that nobody should come anywhere close to taking anything that comes out of his mouth seriously, but I still admire his pluck. I don’t think he really did anything wrong by approaching Obama with a fabricated story, because I don’t believe he expected anyone would ever investigate it, and the point- that Obama’s tax plan would raise the taxes of a rich-ass plumber- is valid. I’ve got no problem with what he did in his initial approach to Obama, and you have to admire the sheer balls of a guy who, upon finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly famous for pretty much nothing, does everything in his power to stretch it out. Campaign appearances, talking to every reporter who shows up, the book deal, recording contract, potential run for Congress… It makes it seem like maybe Joe doesn’t really like plumbing, but whatever- good for him, I hope it all works out. I hope the record is everyone’s prom theme this year, that his book is so powerful and moving that it makes Hemingway look like a suicidal drunk with a pathological fear of latent homosexuality, that his whole neighborhood rallies behind his Congressional campaign, etc. He clearly wants it badly enough.

So the argument around the guy is this bizarre sense of victimization from righties regarding the dude’s sudden fame. Now, I’ll agree that it’s fucked for state employees to abuse their positions to snoop into his private records. But that’s not what they’re really mad about. What they’re mad about is the mainstream media! What a bunch of shills, attacking a regular, innocent dude for daring to question their favorite candidate!

It’s a load of bullshit, of course. The guy is very famous, and he’s doing everything in his power to stay famous as long as possible. And now the media’s paying attention to him. Well, that’s what they do to famous people.

They weren’t interested in him when he was just a dude arguing with Obama on a YouTube clip. They were interested because his name was mentioned a twelve times a minute for an hour and a half in a nationally televised debate. At that point, he was famous, and that’s the point at which the media got interested.

And the initial stories on the guy were hardly attacks. They were semi-fawning David Brooks-ian pieces about the normal, regularness of Joe the Plumber, just an undecided voter from Ohio worried about taxes screwing him over when he wanted to buy a business…

Because the guy was famous for one thing: Being a plumber who was about to buy a business worth $250,000 whose taxes were about to go up because of Obama’s tax plan.

That was what he approached Obama with in the initial segment, and that was why John McCain brought him up in that debate. The fact that he wasn’t on the verge of buying the business and he wasn’t going to have his taxes raised were the most relevant part to his story, because they refuted everything that he had initially claimed to be. And when Joe the Plumber himself started holding court for reporters on his front lawn, campaigning alongside McCain, hiring publicists, seeking record contracts and book deals, and talking about potential congressional runs, that suddenly became relevant. At that point, he invited in the scrutiny, and talking about the places where the truth differs from the story he told is hardly an attack.

But lord, are we in for a whole host of whining over the next four years about just how unfair everything is to the poor conservatives! It’s kind of hilarious- these are people who pictured themselves as victimized outsiders, politically speaking, even when they controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress. Part of the right-wing character is the idea of oneself as a rebel fighting the evil authority out to infringe on everything that makes us great- previously, they had to resort to hating college professors and Keith Olberman. Pretty soon, though, they’ll actually be the out-of-favor minority. Cover your ears- it’s gonna get shrill.

(I was going to open this with a joke about Mario, rather than Joe the Plumber, but I did a quick Google search to see if it were played out and had just gone under my radar- I don’t think that’s the case, but this piece on Associated Content, of all places, is a pretty great Onion rip-off that milks that territory fully.)