Slight rewrite for TIME:
“The arrival of Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, at the Israeli border town of Sderot on Sunday caused a minor sensation among the members of the foreign press who were camped out there. Wurzelbacher, who got his first 15 minutes of fame as a prop for John McCain by putting candidate Barack Obama on the spot with an unscripted, pointed question during last year’s U.S. election campaign,