What is it with plumbers, anyway?

Before Joe the Plumber, the latest celebrity of the U.S. presidential campaign, we had the Polish plumber, star of the 2005 French referendum that sent a much-heralded European Union constitution into the toilet.

Jozef the Plumber  actually he never got a name  was the mythical Polish worker who was going to exploit European integration by moving to France and stealing jobs. Mais non! The French nixed that by a 55 percent majority.

I’m not sure what effect Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, is going to have on the American vote, but one thing’s now certain: you don’t need a plumber’s license to gain national fame.

In time, sociology departments at the Sorbonne and Stanford will complete studies on this Gallo-American plumbing thing. Meanwhile, it’s clearly time for everyone to start searching for his inner plumber.