15 Minutes

Last week a radio host I listen to on the weekends got his 15 minutes (actually much more) of national fame. James T. Harris was on just about every cable news talk show around, having to explain himself for two things. One, begging; a word he wishes he had replaced; John McCain to "take it to Obama", two, for the offense of being black and not supporting Barack Obama.

How bad did it get for him? Death threats, thousands of angry e-mails, some rather disgusting cartoons. Follow the link to the comments on his National Conversation Blog and see how he was treated.

Or, watch some of the YouTube video's of him on CNN.

Now comes Joe the Plumber's turn "in the barrel". Joe's crime was that he asked a question that Barack Obama gave the wrong answer to. Now, Joe's getting his tax records looked at, his license (or lack of) checked out by the media.

Everyone is focusing on Joe. There are rumors that some remenant of the Keating 5 planted him at the Obama walk around, or that Fox News had him there as a plant.

The conspiracy theories from the left are laughable. It doesn't matter if "Joe the Plumber" was planted by Keating left-overs, coached by Karl Rove, paid by Fox News, and was the love child of Rush Limbaugh, it was OBAMA who answered the question. Barack was the one who said he wanted to "spread the wealth"; through higher taxes.

No matter what Joe did or asked, he couldn't force "The One" to give that answer, unless of course there is some right wing thought machine out there that can plant those answers in Obama's head. If they had that technology, I'm sure Obama would have been on the debate claiming that Karl Marx was his idol, and that socialism is good for America.

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Outing McClellan

Scott McClellan's book "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." has been all the rage in liberal circles for the last week or so. They are eating up the fact that McClellan spent lots of words on the Valerie Plame case, and wishing Karl Rove had been fired over it.

They guy who printed Plame's name, Robert Novak, has his take on the book in today's column, and calls out McClellan for his lack of facts about the Plame affair.

Novak points out the inconsistencies between the former White House Press Secretary's book, and the reality of the leak, and the Grand Jury investigation into it.

While at the White House podium, McClellan never knew the facts about the CIA leak, and his memoir reads as though he has tried to maintain his ignorance. He omits the fact that Armitage identified Mrs. Wilson to The Post's Bob Woodward weeks before he talked to me. He does not mention that Armitage turned himself in to the Justice Department even before Patrick Fitzgerald was named as special prosecutor.

In case the liberals out there have forgotten, Rove, and Scooter Libby, weren't the leakers of Plame's name. It was Richard Armitage, a guy who didn't like the Iraq war or Dick Cheney. Novak also points out another fact McClellan omits, no one was convicted of outing Plame, even though the Justice Department had a confession from Armitage that he'd been the guy to mention her name.

When you start reading the facts; instead of McClellan, and his publisher's wishful thinking; you realize more and more that the book wasn't a "tell all" about the White House, but instead a smear job without much basis in reality, written by a disgruntled guy who was fired.

It becomes more clear when you follow the trail of the publisher, who McClellan told Ari Fleischer (his predecessor) had "tweaked" the book. The publishing house, Public Affairs Books, is largely owned by Democratic activist George Soros!

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