Joe the Plumber's new job

Brace yourself—we are not making this up, said Jimmy Orr in The Christian Science Monitor. Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, is heading to Israel to work as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site PajamasTV. And he’ll keep up the shtick he used as John McCain’s campaign prop, by spending a 10-day trip asking “regular people” about the conflict.

“What an absurd, self-defeating stunt,” said Peter Suderman in Culture11. PJTV is clearly hoping to use Joe’s 15 minutes of fame to raise its profile. But conservative news media need to learn that this kind of thing damages their credibility because, “yes, they’re in the business of news.”

The mainstream media is being “pretty snotty” about this, said Roger Simon in Pajamas Media. Maybe that’s because establishment journalists are “threatened that a common man can be a reporter simply by asking common sense questions.” Experts have their place, but sometimes somebody with a fresh outlook can get the most revealing answers of all.

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