Bottoming out.

Funny.

In any line of work there are certain signs that one has hit rock bottom in a professional sense. For a lawyer, it’s getting disbarred or working as an ambulence chaser. For a classically-trained ballet dancer it might be stripping in a club located behind a dog track (which is in turn located behind a rendering plant). For an actor, appearing in straight-to-DVD horror films or anything starring Pauly Shore.

I often wonder what the equivalent is for an academic. Being an adjunct (i.e., a temp professor)? Some people swear they enjoy it. Teaching at an online-only “college” like University of Phoenix? Maybe. Being a grad student for 15 years? All of these things are pretty bad. But I think the true moment at which the average Professor sits back and says, “Oh my God, what the hell happened to my life?” involves having a serious panel discussion with Joe the Plumber and Michelle Malkin.

While I would argue that to a frighteningly large chunk of the country, there's nothing at all embarrassing about Malkin, I imagine there's a sizable subset of wingnutland that sees Joe the Plumber for what he is -- a joke.