Could be my own naivite, but I'm having a hard time seeing how a government official inquiring about a person's tax records is an illegal procedure (less of course, there was some sort of foul play, bribery, strongarming, etc. afoot). As far as it coming out that he didn't have a license, that came out by interviewing a leader of the plumber's union. If I were running for office, and my opponent was able to successfully turn an ordinary individual into an instrumental component in his debates against me, I'd probably want to know everything that I could about that individual as well. In my honest opinion, it wasn't Obama that tried to kill his business... I wouldn't even say that it was McCain (even though it was his campaign that prolonged Joe's 15min. of fame)... At the end of the day, the media was paramount in making Joe a household name, and poor Joe didn't have his house in order. However, the initial thread was about Pres. Obama staring down a reporter, prior to giving his response (which was heavily lauded as cold and unfriendly)... The man has publicly made a few mistakes recently, however I'm not quite ready to assemble an impeachment committe;)