Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter bolted from the Republican Party to join the Democratic majority rather than deal with the indignity of a primary fight he was likely to lose.

Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher has, too, grown disenchanted with the Grand Old Party. Taking time out from hurling slurs against homosexuals, Joe the Plumber spoke to Time magazine, which reported yesterday that Joe is "so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party."

What's next? One can only imagine ...

WASHINGTON -- Sensing the blue-collar demagogue's eagerness to spend the final seconds of his rapidly diminishing 15 minutes of fame with a political party that matters, the Democrats reached out to Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher. They offered the dispirited Republican a no-strings-attached offer to become chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means committee.

Mr. Wurzelbacher accepted, as long as the Democrats understood that he would not stoop to running for office. He also refused to "rub shoulders with queers." The Democrats quickly agreed to both conditions.

"I'm a man's man," the unemployed Ohio resident insisted. "I'm going to bring all of my Republican attitudes to the Democratic Party with me, because that's how I roll. I'm a Christian. I don't have no truck with liberals."

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was so outraged by Joe the Plumber's defection from the Party of God that he denounced the vaguely skinhead-looking opportunist as a sop for the "baby-killing Democrat Party."

"No big loss," Limbaugh sneered during an afternoon rant revolving around the failed plumber's apostasy. "He wasn't educated enough for the GOP anyway. During a recent Tea Party, he confided to a few of his fellow protesters that he wasn't convinced the Earth was younger than 6,000 years. They've been keeping a skeptical eye on him ever since. Such ignorance is inexcusable."

Sputtering with rage, Limbaugh wondered aloud how long it would be before Colin Powell and John McCain joined Joe the Plumber and Arlen Specter in the ninth circle of hell reserved for traitors in "Dante's Inferno." His listeners were shocked because it was the most erudite thing he'd ever said.

Meanwhile, continuing its recent practice of recruiting people who have no interest in furthering its constituents' goals, the leaders of the Democratic Party assured Joe the Plumber that he was exempt from any expectation that he be a "good Democrat."

Asked if Republican Norm Coleman should be seated in the contested Senate race in Minnesota at Democrat Al Franken's expense, Mr. Wurzelbacher was painfully blunt.

"Hell no! I'm a Democrat now, so I want to see Democrats win everything," he said. "Let's get a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate so we can finally do something for all the Joe the Plumbers out there. It's time we Democrats began acting like a governing party instead of a bunch of left-wing pansies afraid to exercise our hard-earned power."

The Democratic leadership was disappointed by Joe's answer. It revealed a party fervor considered unseemly in President Barack Obama's Washington.

In embracing the Democratic agenda without a fight, Joe the Plumber had shown insufficient disloyalty to his newly adopted party. Had he learned nothing from Arlen Specter's example?

How could anyone take Samuel Wurzelbacher seriously if he was already in the tank for Obama and the Democratic Party? Worst of all, being a cooperative Democrat denies Mr. Obama an opportunity to practice his legendary charm offensive on members of his own party.

On Fox's "Hannity," Joe the Plumber defended his jump to the Democratic Party as "highly principled" and the inevitable outcome of many minutes of "very hard thinking about the issues and whatnot."

On "The Colbert Report," Joe preached the gospel of Democratic hegemony to a stunned Stephen Colbert. "You should come over to the Democrat Party side," he told the faux right-wing talk show host. "We're gonna run this country for the next 40 years, easy."

Colbert smiled. "You know, this is all a put-on," he confided during the commercial break. "I'm not really a right-wing wacko." Joe smiled, too. "That's OK," he said. "I'm not really a Democrat, either."