Most of the mainstream media needed drool buckets yesterday as they found out that Joe the Plumber had a couple of tax liens in Ohio. Stop the presses! That’s important stuff. When a random person who asks a question of Barack Obama in a rope line has tax liens, the people must know!

But Patterico points out that not all tax liens are created equal (emphasis added):

I think we can all agree that this is critical information.

Not because it says anything about Joe the Plumber, mind you. But it does serve a useful function: it warns any future citizen who might dare question Barack Obama that his life will be closely scrutinized for any irrelevant but embarrassing information.

So, you know. Critical in that sense.

Oh — I almost forgot to mention: Martin Nesbitt, the treasurer of Obama’s campaign, has tax liens. So do his companies.

You’d think that matters more than the tax liens of Joe the Plumber, wouldn’t you? But good luck finding a Big Media story about Nesbitt’s liens.