Joe The Plumber Defends Campaign Ad Tying Holocaust To Gun Control

Remember Joe the Plumber? In 2008, Joe the Plumber (whose name is Samuel and who has never been a licensed plumber) was planted in a campaign crowd to ask Candidate Obama about his promise not to raise taxes on people making under $250,000. Joe lied to the candidate about a business he claimed to be starting, that he claimed would be hurt by Obama's tax plans. (In reality, the fictional business Joe described is doing a lot better today thanks to President Obama's tax plans.) He was instantly made a celebrity by the McCain campaign and became BFFs with Sarah Palin, but then faded back to obscurity

Anyway, fast forward to 2012. Joe the Plumber (whose name is still Samuel and who still is not a licensed plumber) is running for Congress. And in classic Right Wing fashion, he's against gun control. Not that anyone, especially the President, has actually proposed any new gun control measures or introduced any legislation to regulate Joe's guns, but reality has never been a right wing strength. And why is he against gun control? Well, naturally because gun control caused the Holocaust!!

The Right Wing disconnect from reality has never been more clearly illustrated.


Article excerpt follows:

Joe The Plumber Defends Campaign Ad Tying Holocaust To Gun Control
By Adam Peck
Jun 22, 2012

Earlier this week, Samuel Wurzelbacher — known to most as Joe the Plumber — posted a campaign ad on YouTube that sought to blame gun control laws for human atrocities, including the Armenian genocide of the early 1900s and the extermination of 6 million Jews during World War II.

Amazingly, Wurzelbacher kept digging. Yesterday in an interview with the Toledo Blade, Wurzelbacher defended the ad by denying he ever mentioned the Holocaust:

"All I said was gun control was implemented, and then governments proceeded to violate human rights," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "Nowhere did I mention the Holocaust or was I even talking about it."

Let's go to the videotape:

Apparently, Wurzelbacher can't find any references–explicit or otherwise–to the Holocaust in the lines "In 1939, Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, 6 million Jews and 7 million others, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated." Worse, he goes on to blame "the liberal media" for pointing out the obvious–and deeply offensive–Holocaust reference.

His campaign spokesman Phil Christofanelli told the paper that the story was "generated by left-wing liberal blogs and picked up by the ‘sympathetic liberal media.'" Jewish groups were swift to condemn the ad, as were Democrats and the overwhelming majority of viewers on YouTube. As of publication, the ad has been viewed almost 50,000 times and most of the feedback has been negative.

For good measure, Christofanelli expanded on the ad as well, adding slavery to the list of atrocities that can be traced back to gun control. "Well, blacks weren't allowed to own guns in the South, that's a historical fact as well," he told Politicker on Tuesday.