While this concerns "Joe the Plumber" it has actually moved to a larger issue. Specifically a classic government cover-up, thankfully in this case they didn't do a good job at their little cover-up.

The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later "dictated" how she was supposed to cover it up.

Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, "He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door."

Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency's information-security officer, and then "dictated word for word" what she wrote, Niekamp said. He also reminded her that she could be fired at any time, she said.

"Within an hour, I took the rest of the day off -- again using my vacation time -- and went directly to the office of the inspector general. I told them everything I knew about what happened."
--Columbus Dispatch Politics: Worker says 'Joe the Plumber' cover-up was forced upon her. (http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/12/05/copy/vanessa.ART_ART_12-05-08_A1_NQC4TEM.html?adsec=politics&sid=101)

Glad some people are getting in trouble for this, but the implications are rather troubling still.

It's good that someone came forward with this, but i agree with Garfield: this is really troubiling

Wow... just when I thought politics couldn't degenerate even more... this happens.

I wonder what Obama's supporters -for lack of a better word- are going to say about this? Yes, the election is over and it doesn't matter but I'm curious about it.

Uh, so some people in the Child Services sector ran a background check on the guy for no apparent reason? I'm not sure what all the controversy is about, okay, the same group of people covered it up?

It's the fact that it's getting out that there was a cover-up attempted instead of it just not getting talked about at all is the controversy not the act itself.

It's like Washington, everybody knows that the senators are all crooked, but it's big news once it's proven that they've taken bribes.