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THEY WOULD VASTLY PREFER YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS FOOL INSTEAD: SDEROT, Israel — Joe the Plumber has set aside his wrenches to become a rookie war correspondent, covering Israel’s side of its two-week-old military offensive in Gaza. The Ohio man, who rocketed to fame during the U.S. presidential campaign for asking Barack Obama about his tax plan, was in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Sunday to tell readers of the conservative pjtv.com Web site about the rockets that rain down from the neighboring Gaza Strip. The people of Sderot “can’t do normal things day to day” like get soap in their eyes in the shower, for fear of rockets, said America’s most famous plumber, whose real name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. “I’m sure they’re taking quick showers,” he said. “I know I would.” Wurzelbacher’s status as a rookie was evident when he stood in front of a pile of spent rockets and said: “I have thousands of questions but I can’t think of the right one.” MORE

RELATED: Talking to reporters in Israel, Joe went even further, suggesting that journalists shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near war zones: “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 them. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer-and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.” MORE

URBAN DICTIONARY: Useful Idiot — A term Republicans use for poor people who vote for them even though the Republican party hates poor people.

YAHOO NEWS: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday. “She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon. The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed. Fourteen of the council’s 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas. The United States, Israel’s main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention. “In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour,” Olmert said. “I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me. “I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.” MORE