Known better as "Joe the Plumber," Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher has put his life story of manufactured celebrity between hard covers.

Not bad for an ordinary Joe whose chance front-lawn encounter with presidential candidate Barack Obama became a YouTube sensation and catapulted him into international media fame.

Tipping the scales at a whopping 192 pages, Joe the Plumber's memoir and political manifesto has a stirring title -- "Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream" -- and an obscure publisher (PearlGate of Austin, Texas). Advance reading copies are not yet available, but I don't expect it to transmit the hurly-burly of the campaign trail in riveting detail.

To read Joe the Plumber's thoughts as translated into print by his ghost writer will cost you $24.95 via the Web site secureourdream.com if you want the book before Christmas.

Now, before you go getting all appalled and everything, understand that Joe has already beaten you to it.

In an interview Wednesday with conservative radio talk-show host Glenn Beck, Joe said he was "appalled" by the answers John McCain gave him for voting for a $700 billion bailout package.

"You know, I was angry," Joe the Plumber said. "In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him."

An incredulous Glenn Beck asked him why he didn't have the courage of his convictions and simply "get off the bus" instead of campaigning for a guy who appalled him so much.

Demonstrating how an unlicensed plumber from Toledo became the face of the doomed McCain campaign in the first place, Joe Wurzelbacher admitted that the thought of a President Barack Obama "scares me even more."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the man who snatched him from obscurity and debt and made him a national punch line.

The more I thought about it, the more appalled I got at how appalled Joe the Plumber got over John McCain's opportunism.

Just to keep it straight: Joe is appalled at John McCain for not being sufficiently appalled at government bailouts. He said that the man who promised to take him to Washington to help clean up the government if he won also made him "feel dirty."

Alas, Joe the Plumber isn't smart enough to realize how appalled most Americans are by a guy who allows himself to be used by a political campaign like a cheap date -- only to complain when the date involves kissing.

We're appalled that Joe the Plumber feels "dirty" after his meal ticket lost the election. The opportunity to launch a media career, and publish a 192-page memoir he probably had only nominal input into writing, should have earned John McCain the undying gratitude of a guy we should all start referring to as Joe the Hustler.

Following Joe Wurzelbacher's lead, being "appalled" is the word du jour these days in political circles. Because of that, I'm starting to think that our threshold for being appalled is way too low.

Last week, all sorts of folks were appalled with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's comments spoken before a hot mic that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's nomination as Homeland Security chief was "perfect" because she was single and childless and, thus able to devote 20 hours a day to the job.

Because she's a grown-up, Ms. Napolitano said she considered Mr. Rendell a friend and didn't take the comments personally.

Recently, President-elect Obama's chief speechwriter caused virgin Washington to be appalled when a photo of him groping a cardboard replica of Hillary Clinton surfaced on a social networking site. Mrs. Clinton responded to the insult with humor and dismissed it.

As the economy teeters, the national media, which is easily appalled, is once again mesmerized by a political scandal at the expense of more important issues.

Twice during a televised news conference yesterday, Mr. Obama said that he was "appalled" by the allegations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell the Senate seat he's vacating to the highest bidder.

After the umpteenth irrelevant question about the matter, the reporters eventually moved on to more substantive topics. If this is the pattern we can expect in Mr. Obama's Washington, we can all look forward to being appalled on a regular basis.