Getting a lot of emails along these lines:

I don’t know why I’m e-mailing you, except that I just need to vent to someone on The Corner. Pass this around to the others if you like — I bet I’m not the only one.
I really don’t like McCain. I’ll probably vote for him just as a vote for divided government. I’m far too libertarian in my leanings to be comfortable with McCain (or Obama, for that matter).
That said, the way the pro-Obama media and bloggers, and Obama himself, have responded to Joe has got me nearly shaking with rage. They are attempting to destroy a man — a private citizen — who had the audacity to ask The One a question. Mind you, Joe was on his front lawn playing football with his son when Obama strolled up to give him his hopenchange spiel. Obama approached Joe, not the other way around. And Joe asked Obama an honest question. And Obama gave him an honest — and very, very revealing — answer. Again, mind you, the embarassment was on Obama’s end, not Joe’s. It wasn’t a gotcha question.
And yet, for that Joe is being pilloried, every aspect of his private and professional life being sorted through and exposed. To prove … what? What does that have to do with Obama’s answer? What does Joe’s situation have to do with Obama’s philosophical answer — that he wants to “spread the wealth”? Obama’s answer goes down the memory hole while the nation concentrates its fire on obliterating Joe the Plumber.
It’s sickening, it’s maddening and it’s downright chilling.
Sorry for the length. But I am just SEETHING.

Elsewhere, there were these additional perspectives:

…They’ve done more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they’ve done on Barack Obama in two years…
The harassment of Joe the plumber is the singular biggest mistake of the Obama campaign. The MSM is making Joe a martyr. Heck, DKos just published Joe’s home address. Obama is now not only a Marxist but a Marxist bully – just another Chicago thug. America roots for the underdog and they will not take this action kindly. If Joe were a hero yesterday, wait a few days.
Obi Wan’s line in Star Wars when fighting Darth Vader comes to mind – “Strike me down and I will return more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Americans will realize what happened to Joe could easily happen to them. And they will remember this come November…
What I find really fascinating is the fact that the media elites are treating Joe the Plumber as if he is the one who is out of step with mainstream America, while Bill Ayers is an ‘Eagle Scout’…
There is a stench of desperation surrounding this, as if they sense defeat coming from a moment of honesty from Obama about his real intentions to institute a regime of redistribution. They want to discredit the man who only asked the question as if he’s some political operative who magically forced Obama to sound…well, a little like a Marxist. Why? They want to distract people from Obama’s answer by sliming the man Obama picked at random to ask a question…The Tanning-Bed Media seems to feel that they have a duty to expose every last part of Wurzelbacher’s life, but that asking Obama to explain his political partnerships with Tony Rezko and William Ayers, and his long friendship and financial support of rabid demagogues Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger, are not just out of bounds but downright racist.” Whatever it takes.

This, too:

The MSM can’t destroy Joe the plumber, because everyone is Joe the plumber. If he does have a tax lien on his property, he will be more sympathetic to average Americans. Aren’t we all in fear of losing our personal property because we can’t afford the taxes on it??
They can try to destroy him all they want, his basic question remains: “Does Barack Obama have a right to take my property and give it to someone else?”

And this:

ABC News reports on Joe the Plumber, who seems to be the most effective spokesman for the McCain tax position:

“To be honest with you, that infuriates me,” plumber Joe Wurzelbacher told Nightline’s Terry Moran. “It’s not right for someone to decide you made too much—that you’ve done too good and now we’re going to take some of it back.”
“That’s just completely wrong,” he added.

Joe is now everywhere explaining why raising taxes on little businesses is wrong. He is now a handy reference point for the argument that Obama’s tax scheme is not just going to impact Warren Buffett. (Obama never did answer in the debate why he’s raising anyone’s taxes.)
This is no small bit of luck for McCain…

Obama’s response to Joe the plumber crystallizes what a lot of people have instinctively felt was the problem with Obama but could not verbalize or be heard over the worshipful response of the MSM.
This development could be one of those unplanned pivot points that sometimes alters the course of elections…as long as the multi-state voter fraud efforts by Obama’s friends at ACORN don’t overwhelm it.
Time will tell soon enough.
ADDENDUM
Patterico:

The Los Angeles Times reports:

According to court records, creditors have secured at least two liens against [Joe the Plumber] Wurzelbacher, whose legal name is Samuel. Ohio has a $1,182 lien for owed taxes and St. Charles Mercy Hospital has filed a 2007 lien for $1,261.

I think we can all agree that this is critical information.
Not because it says anything about Joe the Plumber, mind you. But it does serve a useful function: it warns any future citizen who might dare question Barack Obama that his life will be closely scrutinized for any irrelevant but embarrassing information.
So, you know. Critical in that sense.
Oh — I almost forgot to mention: Martin Nesbitt, the treasurer of Obama’s campaign, has tax liens. So do his companies.
You’d think that matters more than the tax liens of Joe the Plumber, wouldn’t you? But good luck finding a Big Media story about Nesbitt’s liens.

ADDENDUM #2
Jennifer Rubin:

The liberal media throng and Democratic elites never learn the right lesson. It’s been only a month since they vilified Sarah Palin, leading to a gigantic backlash and the largest surge in John McCain’s standing in the polls yet. But they didn’t learn. They are at it again with Joe the Plumber and, once again, are exercising no self-restraint.
They don’t, at bottom, respect non-elites from middle America or listen to their concerns. They treat them as cartoon characters or as frauds sent to foil their own quest for power. So they set upon Joe the Plumber in the mistaken view that what was significant about the interchange with Barack Obama were Joe’s concerns. And–surprise, surprise–you’ve got the makings of a backlash.
There are two problems with the approach of the Obama supporters. One, as with the Palin feeding frenzy and Bittergate, it convinces ordinary voters that the Democrats are vicious snobs. Two, it doesn’t address the problem: voters may begin to suspect that Obama is fixated on wealth re-distribution. That’s the idea the Democrats should be working to dispel. But since they can’t imagine that the public would have a problem with raising taxes in a recession, they don’t even bother to reassure voters that of course Obama wants the private sector to grow and of course he understands that you must tread carefully in tax-burdening small businessmen.
The McCain team must be pinching themselves: they can hardly believe their luck that the Democrats have attacked an everyman and prolonged a dangerous storyline…

ADDENDUM #3
On sliming Joe the plumber.
Mary Katharine Ham:

…While the media and Left blogs continue to dig into Joe’s personal life and affairs for asking The One a question.
If Obama were truly a purveyor of a new kind of politics or a decent leader, in any sense of the word, he’d stick a different sentence into his stump speech. Something like, “Hey, everyone chill out. Joe is a man who asked me a question. As presidential candidates, John McCain and I have faced plenty of tough questions. The good citizens who ask those questions don’t deserve to be torn down for their efforts.”
Obama’s frowning upon the practice would go a long way toward quelling the bad practice of vetting every townhall and ropeline questioner as if he were a Supreme Court justice.
But you see, Obama is not a man of new politics or leadership. He is a man who endorses raising the cost of free speech for everyone who disagrees with him. He is a man who sends out Action WIre alerts to mobilize voters to shout down detractors who appear on the radio. He is a man who sends letters to the Department of Justice to ask it to investigate political ads that aren’t even inaccurate, much less criminal.
Joe’s experience is making every sensible American voter wonder whether it’s worth asking their representatives that question they have on their minds. The man who talks endlessly about the value of getting new Americans involved in the democratic process is allowing their intimidation without comment.
It seems Obama only approves of getting dead people, cartoons, and the Dallas Cowboys involved, via voter registration fraud. Mickey Mouse just don’t talk back like Joe the Plumber does.

ADDENDUM #4
Jim Lingren via Instapundit:

…I was stunned to see some document showing Joe the Plumber’s tax problems on my 10pm (CT) newscast on the local NBC affiliate in Chicago on Thursday night. They have very little time for any national news and they actually spent time on Joe the Plumber’s tax problems. Amazing!
But when an actual candidate — Barack Obama — released his tax returns, which on their face seemed to show an ethics violation of Illinois law, the press couldn’t care less.
Just to remind you, Illinois prohibits state legislators from taking speaking fees, and Barack reported “speaking fees.”…

Gotta love the MSM doing the work for it’s favored candidate.