"annoyed by all the condescending lip-service being paid to 'average Joes' this fall"

[Better Believe It]

Weekend Edition
October 17 / 20, 2008
Why It's Time to Bannish "Average Joeism"
Stop, in the Name of Joe!

By STEVE EARLY

Am I the only American voter who’s getting annoyed by all the faux-populist obeisance and condescending lip-service that’s being paid to “average Joes” this Fall?

What’s bothering me, first of all, is the form of address itself. Unlike Palin’s beer-loving archetype, “Joe the Plumber” is an actual person, with a real last name (It’s Wurzelbacher and, yes, that might be hard to pronounce correctly on national TV.) Yet when someone like Joe Wurzelbacher briefly commands center stage—as a random stand-in for all workers (or, more accurately, would-be small business owners)—he is immediately shorn of his full identity and referred to by his trade instead.

Now if McCain and Obama were talking about a better-credentialed building trades guy who only goes by one name—like “Jesus the Carpenter”--surname dropping wouldn't seem so patronizing. (The Democrats, at least, seem to be invoking His name somewhat less than they did earlier in the campaign.) But there’s still a glaring double-standard at work here. It says a lot about how working class people get talked about by politicians of both major parties when they’re not being made to disappear entirely into our vast “middle class” (which, at times, seems to include 95 per cent of the population).

When the names of the high and mighty in America—bankers, big businessmen, professors, or generals--come up in prime time debates or on the campaign trail, they never warrant the same disrespectfully informal and/or stereotypical treatment. For example, when Obama discusses the impact of his tax proposals on a well-heeled Omaha investor (who’s also his economic advisor) and not a mere toilet-fixer in Toledo, he doesn’t refer to him as “Warren the Billionaire.”

Likewise, when McCain launches into his favorite refrain about “corruption and greed on Wall Street,” he never fingers the perpetrators by their first names (or any name actually). And just think of all the possibilities there, from “Richard the Bankrupt” at Lehman Brothers to “Alan the Enabler” of Federal Reserve Board fame. Nor does McCain cite “Dave the General” when he’s striving for greater credibility on military matters in Iraq. And even when he and Palin are warning us about that dangerous Chicago professor and Obama neighbor, they never just call him “Bill the Terrorist.” We’re always reminded of his proper name: William Ayers.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/early10172008.html