June 20, 2012--Remember Joe the Plumber?

Samuel “Joe The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, the 2008 campaign pseudo-celebrity and current Ohio congressional candidate, has a preposterous theory about the Holocaust. 


Two days ago he released a campaign video in which he blamed the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide on gun control laws.

“In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917 one-point-five million Armenians, unable to defend themselves were exterminated,” Mr. Wurzelbacher says in the video. “In 1939, Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, six million Jews and seven million others unable to defend themselves were exterminated.”

Of course he is both ignorant and a fool. 

But, he has been brought into our political discourse by ignorant and foolish behavior and rhetoric emanating from right-wing talk radio, a desperate John McCain, the Republican Party held hostage by the Tea Party, and the likes of the very popular Fox News and its various media outlets and raggy newspapers.

He has little chance of winning in his very Democratic congressional district, but he did win the GOP nomination and Herman Cain is one of his most enthusiastic supporter. So, in this fearful time, who knows.