One of my favorite sites of this election cycle is memeorandum and for the last two news cycles Joe the Plumber has dominated the top of the page. Yesterday was background on Joe, aka Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, and today’s themes focus on the character assassination of Joe the Plumber.

Michelle Malkin et al. acuse the Obama-loving mainstream media of targeting Joe the Plumber for destruction because he dared to ask Obama a critical question about his tax policies. I’m sympathetic towards Joe the Plumber, but the reason that the mainstream media is looking into Joe Wurzelbacker isn’t because he asked a critical question of Obama’s tax policies. It’s because John McCain made him into a debate topic. It was John McCain, not Barack Obama or the media, who made the question of whether Joe the Plumber would benefit or not under Barack’s tax plan a legitimate issue and led the media to investigate his life.