Joy Behar Dismisses Joe the Plumber's 'Fantasy' of Owning Business

October 16th, 2008 4:27 PM

ABC's "View" co-host Joy Behar dismissively called Joe Wurzelbacher's [Joe the Plumber] dream of owning a plumbing company a "fantasy" on the October 16 program. Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck called her out on it (audio available here):

JOY BEHAR, co-host: Joe the Plumber doesn't have a business yet, he's fantasizing about a business he's going to have.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK, co-host: Fantasizing?! This is a man who's trying to realize his hard work.

BEHAR: Excuse me! Fantasizing is a very legitimate term to describe somebody who's predicting the future for themselves. Creative visualization, okay.

HASSELBECK: Fantasizing is a dangerous thing to say because it assumes that it is not attainable.

[...]

BEHAR: ...According towhat I understand, Obama plans on taxing you if you have over 250 [thousand dollars] a year income, right. So, Joe the plumber is upset that he won't have an incentive or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But let's just assume that Obama will have a great program, economic program, and everybody will do better, so Joe the Plumber may make a million dollars. So he'll be paying taxes on a million. Would he rather pay taxes on a million or 250?

HASSELBECK: Now that's a fantasy, right there, first of all...