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| Home Front: Politix |
| The Army of Joes (including Tito and Connie) |
| 2008-10-20 |
| Byron York, National Review (Boldfaced emphasis added.) . . . Joe the Plumber is much more than a zinger in McCain's stump speech. In recent days, the Joe the Plumber phenomenon has taken on a deeper meaning for McCain's audiences, for two reasons. First, he is a symbol of their belief that Barack Obama is going to raise their taxes, regardless of what Obama says about hitting up only those taxpayers who make more than $250,000 a year. . . . The second reason Joe the Plumber resonates with the crowds is what his experience says about the media. Everybody here seems acutely aware of the once-over Wurzelbacher received from the press after his chance encounter with Obama was reported, first on Fox News, and then mentioned by McCain at last week's presidential debate. Wurzelbacher found himself splashed across newspapers and cable shows, many of which reported that he didn't have a plumber's license, that he wasn't a member of the plumbers' union, that he had a lien against him for $1,182 in state taxes, and that he failed to comprehend what many commentators apparently felt was the indisputable fact that Barack Obama would lower his taxes, not raise them. As the people here in Woodbridge saw it, Joe was a guy who asked Barack Obama an inconvenient question -- and for his troubles suddenly found himself under investigation by the media. In the audience Saturday, there were plenty of people who were mad about it. There was real anger at this rally, but it wasn't, as some erroneous press reports from other McCain rallies have suggested, aimed at Obama. It was aimed at the press. And that's where Tito Munoz came in. After McCain left, as the crowd filed out, Munoz made his way to an area near some loudspeakers. He attracted a few reporters when he started talking loudly, in heavily-accented English, about media mistreatment of Wurzelbacher. (It was clear that Spanish was Munoz's native language, and he later told me he was born in Colombia.) When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree. "Are you going to check my license, too?" he asked me. "Are you going to check my immigration status? I'm ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport -- " I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked. "Yeah, I have my papers right here," he said. "I'm an American citizen. Right here, right here." With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose. "Right here," he said. "In your face." Munoz said he owned a small construction business. "I have a license, if you guys want to check," he said. Someone asked why Munoz had come to the rally. "I support McCain, but I've come to face you guys because I'm disgusted with you guys," he said. "Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber? Joe the Plumber has an idea. He has a future. He wants to be something else. Why is that wrong? Everything is possible in America. I made it. Joe the Plumber could make it even better than me. . . . I was born in Colombia, but I was made in the U.S.A." The scene turned into a mini-fracas when David Corn, of Mother Jones, defended press coverage. Munoz was having none of it. Why, he asked, would the press whack Joe the Plumber when it didn't want to report on Obama's relationship with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber? "How come that's not in the news all the time?" Munoz said. "How come Joe the Plumber is every second? I'm talking about NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN." A black woman with a strong Caribbean accent jumped in the fray. "Tell me," she said to Corn, "why is it you can go and find out about Joe the Plumber's tax lien and when he divorced his wife and you can't tell me when Barack Obama met with William Ayers? Why? Why could you not tell us that? Joe the Plumber is me!" "I am Joe the Plumber!" Munoz chimed in. "You're attacking me." "Wait a second," Corn said. "Do you pay your taxes?" "Yes, I pay my taxes," the woman said. "Then you're better than Joe the Plumber," Corn said. That set off a general free-for-all. "I'm going to tell you something," Munoz yelled at Corn. "I'm better than Obama. Why? Because I'm not associated with terrorists!" And so it went. I walked away for a few minutes to strike up a conversation with the woman who had jumped into the debate. Her name was Connie, and she said she had been born and raised in Antigua, in the West Indies. "I immigrated to the United States over 20 years ago," she told me. "It's my home. America has become my home. I came here freely of my own free will because I loved it, and I loved what it had to offer, and I don't want to see it ruined." I asked her whether it was difficult, as a black person, to support McCain at a time when probably 90 to 95 percent of black voters support Obama. "I have always been a conservative," she told me. "I'm mad. I was extremely upset to see the way the media went after Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. . . . To see the drive-by media and the Obama campaign attack two ordinary Americans simply because one of them managed to get Barack Obama to tell the truth, it was shameful and disgraceful." . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #3 Munoz said he owned a small construction business I'm starting to get the impression that when immigrants first come here, they vote Democratic because that party promises to give them stuff. After becoming a citizen and getting a little stuff of their own - job, house, busines, whatever - they drift over towards the Republicans because that party promises not to take things from them. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-10-20 18:18 |
| #2 Tell me someone has a video of this..... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-10-20 11:47 |
| #1 I asked her whether it was difficult, as a black person, to support McCain at a time when probably 90 to 95 percent of black voters support Obama.. Caribbean, Nigerian, Central American blacks came here to better themselves, their future, and their families. They, like all immigrants white, black, yellow, are the people who do not accept 'keeping to the old ways'. They believe in an America where if you work hard enough you and your posterity can make it. America worked hard in the latter half of the 20th Century to remove institutions which would obstruct those seeking to better their lives only to see new institutions erected with the objective to keep 'wrong' Americans from having truly equal opportunity. The American philosophy is that if one works hard enough he or she can obtain what others have achieved. The Socialist philosophy is that no one but those of the inner party are entitled to that 'what' and damn anyone else from having it. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-10-20 11:45 |