Kerfuffle Over Kimmel’s Barb Against ‘Plumber’ Emerges as Warning Against Mocking Voters

James “Jimmy” Kimmel is doing damage control after mocking the new head at the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Markwayne Mullin, as “a plumber protecting us from terrorism.” The backlash is a reminder that the public cherishes the ideal that American leaders can rise from even the humblest of origins.Having met a backlash over comments about the assassination of a conservative commentator, Charlie Kirk, last year, Mr. Kimmel is secure in his position. The fact that he responded to the current outcry means he recognizes where his audience’s sympathies lie. He tried to appease them on Thursday.President Trump’s “apple-polishers,” Mr. Kimmel said, were “in a tizzy because I made light of the fact” — softening his remarks made on Tuesday — that Mr. Mullin had been a plumber. He again gave the impression that the secretary had come straight to DHS from draining a septic tank with no stops in between.Mr. Mullin holds a degree in plumbing from the Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology and ran family businesses including Mullin Plumbing. Mr. Kimmel distilled the secretary’s work history down to that, saying it was “not necessarily,” another step back, “the kind of resume you might hope for” at DHS.Mr. Kimmel said that he was “not upset” that Mr. Mullin “used to be a plumber,” but that he wasn’t “still” one. The host said that his remarks were not “an insult to plumbers,” but he’d no more put one “in charge of Homeland Security” than “call a five-star general to pull a rat out of my toilet,” reducing the entire trade to one of TV’s “Dirty Jobs.”Mr. Mullin, however, served in the House and Senate, which tends to be credential enough for any job in Washington. His predecessors, Secretaries Kristi Noem and, under President Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas, also lacked credentials related to fighting terrorists. Both were criticized, but not for any previous jobs.Mr. Kimmel’s remarks about the Democrat from New York, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gave his remarks significance beyond being the outrage of the moment. “On behalf of bartenders everywhere,” Mr. Kimmel said, referring to the congresswoman’s previous job, “we anxiously await your apology.”A top Democrat in the House in 2018, Congressman Joseph Crowley, had dismissed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and the idea that the 28-year-old bartender could be a political threat, only to end up losing to her. When Mr. Kimmel said to critics, “You do the bartenders; I’ll do the plumbers,” he acknowledged that Americans relate to those trades over TV hosts and Congress members.Consider the beloved comedy “Cheers,” Jackie Gleason’s Joe the Bartender character, or Mr. Dooley — Finley Peter Dunne’s commentator in Chicago newspapers between 1893 and 1926. Gleason chose to make a plumber, Art Carney’s Ed Norton, a co-star on “The Honeymooners,” his groundbreaking sitcom.Most Americans have careers closer to plumbers than to late-night TV hosts. “God must love the common man,” President Lincoln is summarized as saying, “he made so many of them.” The founding editor of the National Review, William F. Buckley, often said he’d “rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the phonebook than the faculty of Harvard.”Mark Twain, in his autobiography, expressed pride that he’d gotten his start at the San Francisco Call. It was, he wrote, “The New York Sun of that day … the washerwoman’s paper. That is, it was the paper of the poor.” It’s no coincidence that many of America’s leaders were elevated by their fellow citizens for their humble beginnings.President Grant, posthumously one of only three six-star generals, sold firewood. President Truman was a haberdasher. President Nixon plucked chickens. Lincoln, like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, was a bartender. We’ve had 16 Ivy League presidents, but President Reagan attended Eureka College, President McKinley dropped out, and President Jackson was called an “uneducated bumpkin” with little formal schooling.Mr. Kimmel’s kerfuffle is a cautionary tale that while it’s proper to critique the resumes of those in high office, Americans bristle at belittling honest work. Even presidents, under the Constitution, need only be natural born, at least 35, and residents of America for 14 years. Pluckers and plumbers, bumpkins and bartenders, are all free to apply.

Kerfuffle Over Kimmel’s Barb Against ‘Plumber’ Emerges as Warning Against Mocking Voters

Kerfuffle Over Kimmel’s Barb Against ‘Plumber’ Emerges as Warning Against Mocking Voters

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