Beast of the Month - April 2009

Beast of the Month - April 2009
Rick Santelli
Pseudo-populist Cable Shill

"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"

Populism in America is a funny thing. When it comes from the mouths of guys like Michael Moore, Jim Hightower or Greg Palast who focus their energy defending the little guy against corporate abuse and the collusion of big business and big government, the work gets either ignored or relentlessly attacked. When so-called populism focuses its ire on lesser (and often uglier) targets, on the other hand, it gets highlighted as something to take notice of.

Take Glenn Beck, for example. (And we really mean it, PLEASE take him.) He has become a leading doomsayer in the Obama hackathon that takes place daily on Fox News, and a ratings champ on the "We report, you decide" network. This despite (or perhaps because of) the fact any examination of Beck's rants would reveal a man who isn't a populist like often hyped, but rather someone who is utterly psychotic. Stephen Colbert recently had fun with this on his show, urging Beck to "crank up the crazy and rip off the knob!" He did so after Beck presented an apocalyptic scenario Colbert described as "the most terrifying fictional future I have ever heard yanked right out of someone's ass." He summed up Beck's future vision of America as a land of "ignorant, illiterate, whacked-out hillbillies with nothing to lose. Terrifying! But, more viewers for Fox News!" It's hard to believe that Fox, already the home of borderline personalities such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, could actually lower the bar for unhinged behavior, but, by golly, we gotta hand it to them, they have.

Then there's good old Rush Limbaugh, who is being touted as the new leader of the GOP. Limbaugh, much like O'Reilly, has long portrayed himself as a champion against the establishment, though already unconvincing after any comparison of his deranged oxy-fueled radio rants with Republican talking points memos. Besides this, it's hard to take seriously a multi-millionaire who has never worn blue jeans his entire life when he feigns to be a common man, especially when he froths about right-wing economics that screws the working class in favor of the rich.

Speaking of the working class, how about Joe Wurzelbacher, AKA Joe the Plumber, who was made into a working class hero near the end of the desperate McCain campaign? This after Joe whined to Obama about plans to raise taxes on people making over $250K a year (not a major working class concern.) To be fair, Joe W. deserves some sympathy after the Obama machine began illegally digging into his private files in order to uncover dirt after McCain used him as a political prop. However, Plumber Joe has since exploited his faux-celebrity status as a tool for reactionary political forces. Recently, he was hired by the Orwellian-named Americans for Prosperity to speak at rallies against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize. Actual blue collar workers managed to sneak in to the events and heckle Joe while wealthy right-wingers cheered on his anti-worker pandering. Plumber Joe, hope you're enjoying your Warholian fifteen minutes while they last.

Still, the most offensive faux-populist moment of recent has not come from Rush, Beck or even Joe W. Instead, the award must go to CNBC's Rick Santelli, The Konformist Beast of the Month.

Santelli was, until February 19th, a fairly unknown third-rate correspondent for the minimally watched CNBC business news network. That all changed when discussing Barack Obama's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan to help nine million families avoid foreclosure with a $75 billion fund. On the network, he blasted the plan: "The government is promoting bad behavior... Why don’t you put up a Web site to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages, or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water... It's time for another tea party!"

(As he said this, Santelli was on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, and the traders who cheered him on appeared to be the wimpiest, most pasty-skinned mob since the Brooks Brother riot in Florida during the 2000 election.)

The so-called "Rant of the Year" was curious in many respects. Imagine, for example, if a cable news correspondent had pulled something similar about the Iraq War being a scam right before it was launched. Just what would've been the reaction to that? No doubt he/she would've been blasted for lacking journalistic objectivity and likely would've lost their job. Or perhaps for an even more recent comparison, when the Wall Street $700 billion dollar bailout was being debated in September and October, where were the Rick Santellis blasting the promotion of bad behavior and declaring the recipients of the boondoggle to be losers? Instead, all objectivity was thrown out the window and the swindle was pushed through with establishment media hysteria behind it, promoting bad behavior be damned. Yet suddenly, when the issue becomes providing $75 billion in aid to help victims of subprime loan scams keep their homes, outrage becomes acceptable. This, of course, is the bigger point: attacking trillion-dollar war rackets and Wall Street handouts isn't kosher, but calling poor and middle-class home owners "losers" while they struggle to remain afloat is okely-dokely.

The hypocrisy in this case is even worse: on the Website The eXiled, Mark Ames and Yasha Levine reported that General Electric, the parent company to CNBC, received $139 billion in government-backed loan guarantees to keep GE Capital from going bankrupt and sinking the GE empire, CNBC included, with it. That amount, incidentally, is $64 billion more than what nine million subprime victims Santelli mocked as losers are to receive in the Obama plan. Noting these facts, Ames & Levine sarcastically dismissed Santelli as a bailout welfare queen.

The response to Santelli's rant proves just how okay the media establishment was with his hypocritical stand. As Santelli frothed, the folks in the CNBC anchor booth chuckled as though it was entertaining truths. Quickly, the rant went "viral" on YouTube, which is quite unusual since media/entertainment oligopolies such as NBC normally ruthlessly suppress any free distribution of their copyrighted work over the Internet. The "viral" nature of the video was pushed on cyberspace by Matt Drudge, who seemed flushed with an excitement he normally gets only from gay porn. On CNBC's big sister MSNBC, it was promoted by smiling mouthpieces who gushed about the - here comes the "P" word - populist nature of his rant.

Of course, perhaps the fault here lies in the continuing promotion of the George Magazine philosophy which has turned politics into entertainment, reducing actual debate about substance and ideas into shallow celebrity cults of personality. In that context, Santelli is indeed a "populist" hero, as his manufactured celebrity status qualifies him for the name brand certification.

But laying the blame at the feet of poor John-John (who even in death has been the most influential man in journalism over the last decade, though that is definitely influence to the worst) wouldn't be honest. For it wasn't mere celebrity narcissism behind the promotion of the Santelli rant, but rather a heavily financed right-wing machine. A Playboy article by Ames and Levine links Santelli's demand for a "tea party" with a project backed by the deep pockets of the ultra-right Koch family. Santelli’s call for a "Chicago Tea Party" was a mainstream push for an Astroturf "grass-roots" campaign for “tea parties” nationally protesting Obama's economic policies from the right. The case made by Ames and Levine is pretty simple: if Santelli wasn't pimping out his minimal journalistic cred for major Koch bucks, he was definitely selling himself short.

Here's another case study to show how out of whack the framing of "populism" is in the USA: the telling reaction to the AIG bonus scandal. When it was revealed that AIG had paid $165 million out of $170 billion in bonuses to employees, there was legitimate widespread outrage in the public, outrage that was neither orchestrated nor anticipated. (And yes, let's ignore for a second that, at this point, $165 million is chump change for Wall Street.) Establishment politicians chimed in, feigning outrage as well, including Barack Obama, who unconvincingly pretended to be upset, even though his administration directed legislation allowing the bonus loophole. Faced with mass anger, Congress originally pushed for 90 percent surtaxes on Wall Street bailout company bonuses for anyone making over $250K, but after Obama declared opposition to the plan, it appears to be dead on arrival. (Obama's excuse, that to stop the bonuses from going through would interfere with legal contracts, oddly wasn't used when he forced UAW members take massive pay cuts in Detroit.) Quickly, the korporate media, rather than helping the AIG outrage go viral, tried to squash it, with Michael Gerson of the Washington Post decrying the controversy as "demagoguery" rather than genuine.

To be fair, there was some backlash against Santelli as well. Still, it seems the main source of any mainstream outrage against him was not for his crude dismissal of struggling homeowners, but rather for how his rant was an attack on Barack Obama, the patron saint of yuppie liberalism. (Tellingly, it was Jon Stewart, the leading media mouthpiece of yuppie liberalism, who smacked up CNBC the most, using Jim Cramer of the news network's Mad Money as a stand-in after Santelli wimped out on a Daily Show appearance.)

Meanwhile, after Team Obama later announced their trillion dollar "toxic asset" bailout for Wall Street, there was again no populist rant on cable news against subsidizing losers and promoting bad behavior. Putting it all together, let's note the pattern:

* $700 billion TARP bailout deal for Wall Street: Mass cheerleading for the plan

* $787 billion Obama Stimulus Plan that was somewhat aimed at the middle and lower class: Controversy and vigorous debate

* $75 billion Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosure: Smug “journalist” denounces it as a plan to help "losers"

* Attempt to tax $165 million in bonuses at bailout recipient AIG: Controversy is denounced as "demagoguery"

* $1 trillion plan to bailout Wall Street's "toxic assets": No controversy whatsoever


It seems the only time any controversy is hyped in the mainstream press is when the recipient of the money is even partially the poor, the working class and the middle class. Meanwhile, though the public is indeed outraged by the massive swindle over the last year by Wall Street (with up to $9 trillion in government resources pumped in to these korporate parasites) blowhards like Santelli are trying to intentionally confuse the public, equating the Wall Street bailout with the stimulus package and focus the ire of rage against the poor and disenfranchised rather than the bankers.

Perhaps most important, there appears to be a concerted attempt by the right wing to frame Barack Obama's positions as far left, even though he has pushed more to give handouts to Wall Street than even the Bush Administration. With unemployment at 8.5 percent and rising, hopefully the image of Obama as the great progressive champion will soon be gone (and good riddance.) Until then, it appears that even Santelli isn't the worst example of phony populism coming from Chicago.

In any case, we salute Rick Santelli as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Ricky!!!

Sources:

Ames, Mark and Levine, Yasha. "Backstabber: Is Rick Santelli High On Koch?" Playboy 27 February 2009 <http://www.playboy.com/blog/2009/02/backstabber.html>.

Ames, Mark and Levine, Yasha. "'Slick Rick' Santelli Is A Bailout Queen." The eXiled 3 March 2009 <http://exiledonline.com/%E2%80%9Cslick-rick%E2%80%9D-santelli-is-a-bailout-queen-tea-party-mascot%E2%80%99s-company-took-139-billion-in-bailout-funds-ge-uses-taxpayer-money-to-censor-its-critics-destroy-bailout-program-f/>.

Ames, Mark and Levine, Yasha. "Victory Gloat: Ames & Levin Serve Up Santelli's Head on The Daily Show." Huffington Post 5 March 2009 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/05/jon-stewart-eviscerates-c_n_172057.html>.

Calmes, Jackie and Story, Louise. "Outcry Builds in Washington for Recovery of A.I.G. Bonuses" New York Times 19 March 2009 <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/19bailout.html>.

"CNBC's Santelli Rants About Housing Bailout." ABC News 19 February 2009 <http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/02/cnbcs-santelli.html>.

Donmoyer, Ryan J. "Dodd Blames Obama Administration for Bonus Amendment." Bloomberg 19 March 2009 <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aT_tMXRy2vDs>.

"Doom Bunker - Glenn Beck's 'War Room'." ColbertNation.com 4 March 2009 <http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/220649/march-04-2009/doom-bunker---glenn-beck-s--war-room->.

Edwards, David and Webster, Stephen C. "Colbert Mocks 'Crazy Eyes' Beck with 'Doom Bunker' Segment." Raw Story 5 March 2009 <http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Colbert_mocks_Glenn_Beck_with_doom_0305.html>.

Ford, Glen. "So President Obama Is Finally Pissed Off? So What?" Black Agenda Report 18 March 2009 <http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/so-president-obama-finally-pissed-so-what>.

Grey, Barry. "Wall Street Celebrates Government Windfall for Banks and Big Investors." World Socialist Web Site 24 March 2009 <http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/toxi-m24.shtml>.

Oswald, Rachel. "Union Plumbers Heckle and Jeer 'Joe the Plumber' at Rally." Raw Story 31 March 2009 <http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Union_plumbers_heckle_Joe_Plumber_at_0331.html>.

Ritholtz, Barry. "Rick Santelli’s Planted Rant?" The Big Picture 28 February 2009 <http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santellis-faux-rant>.

Sirota, David. "Welcome to Double-standard America." Salon 21 March 2009 <http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/21/sirota>.

Spitzer, Eliot. "The Real AIG Scandal." Slate 17 March 2009 <http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/>.

Union plumbers heckle and jeer 'Joe the Plumber'

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Union_plumbers_heckle_Joe_Plumber_at_0331.html

Union plumbers heckle and jeer 'Joe the Plumber' at rally
Rachel Oswald
Tuesday March 31, 2009

Despite the praise heaped on Joe Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," by conservatives as an exemplary blue-collar working man, many in the plumbing industry are none too pleased -- and they're letting it be known.

Wurzelbacher, a Toledo man first made famous by Sen. John McCain during the final presidential debate in 2008, appeared in Pittsburgh Monday night to rally opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. The act is ardently opposed by the business lobby because it would make it easier for workers to unionize.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's James O'Toole on Monday covered a preemptive rebuttal to Wurzelbacher's remarks by union officials at the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plumbers Local 27.

"It's definitely a slap in the face to every real plumber out there," said Thomas Bigley, the business manager of the Pittsburgh Plumbers, of Wurzelbacher, adding that he should be called "Joe the impostor," as he is not a licensed plumber.

Wurzelbacher's actual appearance at a hotel rally Monday night was met by a mixture of cheers from fellow conservatives and boos from union members who managed to infiltrate the anti-EFCA rally.

As O'Toole reported on Tuesday, the crowd of approximately 100 attendees was divided between conservative supporters and those there to jeer Wurzelbacher with catcalls of "liar" and "pay your taxes," as well as a few more choice words.

"Mr. Wurzelbacher appeared unperturbed by the catcalls as the impromptu debates within the audience grew heated, though never violent, under the gaze of several Green Tree police officers," wrote O'Toole.

Wurzelbacher admitted that he is not a state-certified plumber in Ohio but asserted that he is in fact a working plumber with many years on the job.

"The mainstream media is powerful. They'll destroy you if they can. ... I'm a plumber, brother," he said. "A lot of people seem to respond to what I have to say. And what I'm saying is very simple, I'm just regurgitating what my mother and father taught me."

Wurzelbacher did receive an appearance fee from the anti-labor group, Americans for Prosperity, for his remarks at the Pittsburgh rally and will receive fees as well for anti-EFCA appearances on Tuesday in Harrisburg and Philadelphia. He declined to divulge the amount of the fee, saying, it was "nobody's business."

"The public loves Joe the Plumber," said Americans for Prosperity spokesperson, Mary Ellen Burke, to The Plum Line's Greg Sargent. "They see him as a role model."

Writes Sargent, "Asked whether Joe the Plumber had any particular knowledge or expertise about EFCA that might explain the decision to enlist him, Burke said that he was being enlisted to provide a 'grassroots perspective' and 'the working perspective' on the measure. Pressed on whether Joe the Plumber has any particular claim to being a spokesperson on the issue, Burke replied that 'he represents the American worker.'"

According to O'Toole, Wurzelbacher dismissed speculation that he would respond to a draft movement for him to run for Congress next year.

The Employee Free Choice Act is unlikely to pass in the current Congress. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) recently switched his allegiance on the measure, saying he would vote with Republicans to filibuster it. Specter faces a tight primary race with a conservative challenger, and has been told by the national Republican fundraising apparatus that he must oppose the measure to receive national GOP aid.

Joe the Plumber gets another gig

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/joe-plumber-gets-another-gig

Joe the Plumber gets another gig
By John Amato
Friday Mar 27, 2009

This is not a joke. Americans for Prosperity, an anti-Employee Free Choice Act group, is hiring Joe the Plumber to speak at rallies against the average working class in America.

Joe the Plumber is hitting the campaign trail again! He’s been pressed into service to do a series of events throughout Pennsylvania rallying opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, the organizer of the events confirms.

Mr. Plumber will speak at rallies against the measure in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia on March 30th and 31st, according to a spokesperson for the anti-EFCA group Americans for Prosperity.

“The public loves Joe the Plumber,” the spokesperson, Mary Ellen Burke, claimed to me. “They see him as a role model.”

Asked whether Joe the Plumber had any particular knowledge or expertise about EFCA that might explain the decision to enlist him, Burke said that he was being enlisted to provide a “grassroots perspective” and “the working perspective” on the measure.

Pressed on whether Joe the Plumber has any particular claim to being a spokesperson on the issue, Burke replied that “he represents the American worker.” Burke couldn’t immediately say whether Joe the Plumber was being paid for his appearances.

Wonder if he'll tell the anti-EFCA crowds they make him horny, too. Sounds like a sure recipe for success.

The public doesn't love Joe the Plumber, insane conservatives do. This only makes things look so much worse for Republicans in this country. How weak and foolish Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe must feel seeing that Joe the Plumber is being billed as a celebrity in the GOP. It's so pathetic.

I guarantee you that after his run dies -- well, OK, it may never die, because they are a leaderless party, and he's about as qualified as any of them -- but when it does and if a union job opens up for him, he'll take it in a second.

Joe the Plumber: Journalists abolished from war coverage

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Joe_Plumber_says_journalists_should_be_0111.html

'Joe the Plumber' says journalists should be 'abolished' from war coverage
Nick Cargo
Sunday January 11, 2009

On Sunday, conservative media barnacle and McCain campaign relic Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher took time out of his new job as a war correspondent for Pajamas TV to tell the very people who were filming him that they shouldn't be allowed to cover war:

"I'll be honest with you: I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. (sic) I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for 'em.

Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to...down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers...I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well, look at this atrocity,' well, you don't know the whole story behind it half the time. So I think the media should have no business in it."

Misuse of state data: 'Joe the Plumber'

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/12/05/copy/vanessa.ART_ART_12-05-08_A1_NQC4TEM.html?sid=101

Misuse of state data
Worker says 'Joe the Plumber' cover-up was forced upon her
Friday, December 5, 2008
By Catherine Candisky

The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later "dictated" how she was supposed to cover it up.

Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, "He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door."

Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency's information-security officer, and then "dictated word for word" what she wrote, Niekamp said. He also reminded her that she could be fired at any time, she said.

"Within an hour, I took the rest of the day off -- again using my vacation time -- and went directly to the office of the inspector general. I told them everything I knew about what happened."

Niekamp took another day of vacation yesterday to testify before the House State Government and Elections Committee about legislation that calls for the firing of any unclassified state employee who improperly accesses confidential personal information.

Rep. Shannon Jones, a Springboro Republican sponsoring House Bill 648, said she introduced the measure because she thinks that high-ranking officials such as Job and Family Services Director Helen Jones-Kelley weren't punished enough.

"The systematic misuse of government databases and the governor's woeful under-reaction to state government workers engaging in this outrageous behavior make House Bill 648 necessary," she told the committee.

Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, placed Jones-Kelley on a one-month unpaid suspension last month after Inspector General Thomas P. Charles found she authorized the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, for no legitimate government purpose.

Thompson also was suspended for a month after Charles found that he participated in directing the check and instructed Niekamp to send a deceptive e-mail about it. Three others received lesser punishment.

The checks came the day after Republican presidential nominee John McCain talked about Wurzelbacher in his final presidential debate Oct. 15 with Democrat Barack Obama.

The next day, Niekamp said, Assistant Deputy Director Carri Brown asked her to check the state child-support computer system for Wurzelbacher.

Brown "claimed that he had contacted our agency with a dispute about how much child support he owed," Niekamp said.

Niekamp, who did not recognize the name, said Brown took some notes, thanked her and left.

A week later, Thompson came to her office with a different explanation -- that he, Jones-Kelley and assistant director Fred Williams had requested the check.

"Doug told me that the person Carri had asked me to look up was Joe the Plumber -- the one who was talked about in the national news. He said he needed my help explaining something," Niekamp said.

"Doug then told me I must write an e-mail to our agency's information-security officer to explain why the file had been accessed. He turned my computer screen so he could see it and dictated word for word what he wanted me to write. ...

"He then told me that we needed to make sure that we answer questions about what happened the same way, so that our versions were not different from each other. Before he said that, he reminded me that I was an unclassified employee -- which, as you may know, is someone who can be fired without cause."

Niekamp said she knew the checks were improper because the staff undergoes training and must read and sign a form explaining when they can access confidential and personal information maintained by the department.

"Both Doug and Carri can access the (child-support) system and could have accessed a file without my involvement," Niekamp said. "To this day, I do not understand why they asked me to look at this information when they could have easily done this themselves."

ccandisky@dispatch.com

Joe the Plumber case still dripping

http://www.ohio.com/news/34453464.html

Joe the Plumber case still dripping
Half-dozen agencies access records of Ohio man
By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Nov 14, 2008

The election is over, but the Joe the Plumber case is not.

Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said his office is now looking at a half-dozen agencies that accessed state records on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.

The Beacon Journal has learned that, in addition to the Department of Job and Family Services, two other state offices — the Ohio Department of Taxation and Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers — conducted database searches of Joe the Plumber.

Wurzelbacher became an instant celebrity after he asked Barack Obama a series of questions in his Toledo driveway about the Democrat's tax policies.

In the third debate between Obama and Republican John McCain on Oct. 15, the candidates referred to Joe the Plumber more than 20 times.

The next day, the taxation department conducted two separate searches of a database of liens for unpaid taxes that were certified to the Ohio Attorney General's Office for collection.

John Kohlstrand, a taxation department spokesman, said he is prohibited from talking about individual taxpayers, but he confirmed that the databases were checked.

The searches were done to determine whether a lien placed against the individual was appropriate and whether it remained unpaid or not, Kohlstrand said.

The department's first search of the day was unsuccessful because of incorrect information about the individual, Kohlstrand said. Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers' office then contacted taxation because it was having difficulty accessing the database, Kohlstrand said. After the two agencies talked, taxation completed a successful search.

Kohlstrand said that the AG's office wanted access to the records so they could turn over to the national media lien information that was a public record in Lucas County. He said the national media did not have reporters in Toledo, so the attorney general's office was helping them out with public records.

On the day following the two searches, the taxation department conducted a search of another in-house database that tracks cases and correspondence between taxpayers and the department before the liens being certified and turned over to the attorney general for collection.

Rick Anthony, deputy tax commissioner, said there are times when a payment can be in the pipeline so a lien appears unpaid when in fact the taxpayer or business has repaid the state.

Anthony said the database searches on both days were conducted to ensure that the information in Lucas County was being properly reported by the media.

''Wouldn't that have been a disaster if the lien had been paid,'' Kohlstrand said. ''The responsible thing for us to do would be to take prompt steps to make it right.''

''We are not aware of any inappropriate browsing of information by anyone in our department pertaining to Mr. Wurzelbacher,'' Kohlstrand said.

Jim Gravelle, a spokesman for Attorney General Rogers, said he could not comment on individual records because of privacy issues. He said he would not confirm or deny that the AG's office went to taxation or whether his office had been queried by the inspector general.

The day after the debate, media outlets began reporting that Joe the Plumber's real name was Samuel, he was not a licensed plumber and he owed close to $1,200 in back taxes and additional money to a hospital.

His home was besieged by media outlets, including television crews that camped on his lawn.

Wurzelbacher had questioned Obama's plan to raise taxes for anyone with an income exceeding $250,000 because he planned to purchase his own plumbing business.

His current income made him eligible for a tax break under Obama's plan.

Wurzelbacher later endorsed McCain at a campaign stop in Ohio and hired the Pathfinder Management group in Nashville to manage his career.

Kohlstrand would not comment on an investigation by the inspector general, but Charles confirmed Thursday that he is looking into the taxation department to determine whether their searches were appropriate.

Charles said he does not know at this point if anyone in any of the agencies did anything wrong.

The inspector general began investigating after news reports surfaced that Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, ordered her agency to conduct background checks on Joe the Plumber.

Jones-Kelley maintains that her agency routinely checks on people who are thrust into the spotlight to determine whether they have unpaid child support bills, are receiving public support from her department or owe unemployment taxes.

After the election, Gov. Ted Strickland placed Jones-Kelley on paid leave. The governor said the suspension was for a matter unrelated to the background checks on Joe the Plumber.

Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.