|
|
 |
|
Reply
| |
Tito the Builder Joins Palin on the Stump LEESBURG, VA �?Sarah Palin brought a guest along to her rally this morning, but it wasn’t a country star or a television personality. However, he is known by his first name: Tito the Builder. Tito Munoz, who owns a construction company in Virginia, has been part of Palin’s stump speech for about a week since the McCain campaign discovered him three days before that at a rally for the top of the ticket in Woodbridge, Virginia. The Colombian born Munoz who is now an American citizen defended Joe the Plumber to a few reporters and took them to task for looking in to the background of Joe Wurzelbacher. Munoz, dressed in his full construction garb, told the cheering crowd that they can call him by his now famous nickname and then went on to warn Virginians about the “danger�?an Obama administration would bring to the country. “Everything we stand for is in danger by higher taxes and less freedom. Everything we stand for is made stronger by people like you, like John McCain and Sarah Palin. This country has given me so much, but I have not been given much time to do my job. My job today is to stand before you, to stand up for freedom,�?Tito said before introducing the GOP Vice-Presidential candidate to the crowd.�?/P> Palin thanked Munoz and joked, “Not since the Jackson Five has the name Tito been used so much.�?/P> The Alaska governor repeated her standard remarks about Tito that she says on the stump describing how Munoz defended Wurzelbacher from “the Obama campaign and it’s media friends.�?/P> “Remember Joe just asked a simple question, and ever since then Joe has been investigated and attacked for asking that question. But Tito now, Tito has a question of his own. And Barack Obama isn’t going to like this one either. Tito wants to know, and I quote, he asked, he says, ‘Why the heck 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 so wrong?�?Palin said, “Tito loves this country and Tito isn’t the only McCain supporter who feels that way. In fact, I know that we have a lot of small business owners here with us today, and they feel just like Tito does.�?/P> In an article describing the encounter from the National Review’s Byron York, Munoz expressed his anger at the media for investigating Wurzelbacher, but not the Obama campaign. |
|
 First
Previous
2-6 of 6
Next
Last
|
|
Reply
| |
John McCain and an Army of Joes
The real anger at McCain’s rallies.
By Byron York
Woodbridge, Va. �?Tito Munoz was ready to rock when John McCain showed here up at the Connaughton Community Plaza in Woodbridge, Virginia Saturday afternoon. Dressed in a yellow hard hat covered with McCain-Palin stickers, wearing an orange high-visibility vest, Munoz carried a hand-lettered sign that said CONSTRUCTION WORKER FOR McCAIN. He got a coveted spot in the bleachers directly behind McCain, where he could be seen in the camera shot along with the guy holding the sign that said PHIL THE BRICK LAYER and the woman with the ROSE THE TEACHER banner. He cheered a lot. | Everybody was playing on the Joe-the-Plumber theme. McCain spent a lot of time on it in his stump speech, using the now-famous Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo, Ohio, as a stand-in for “small businessmen and women all over America [who] want to keep their earnings and not give it to the government.�?McCain added that Obama’s response to Wurzelbacher �?the assertion that it would be best to “spread the wealth around�?�?made Joe the Plumber “the only person to get a real answer out of Sen. Obama.�?/SPAN> The crowd laughed and cheered. But for them, 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. They know Wurzelbacher doesn’t make that much, and they know they don’t make that much. And they’re not suspicious because they believe that someday they will make $250,000, and thus face higher taxes. No, they just don’t believe Obama right now. If he’s elected, they say, he’ll eventually come looking for taxpayers who make well below a quarter-million dollars, and that will include them.
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 �?�?/SPAN> 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.�?/SPAN> 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.�?BR> 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!�?BR>
�?EM>I am Joe the Plumber!�?Munoz chimed in. “You’re attacking me.�?BR>
“Wait a second,�?Corn said. “Do you pay your taxes?�?BR>
“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!�?BR>
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.�?BR>
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.�?BR>
Meanwhile, the great debate was continuing, with Tito the Construction Worker and David the Journalist trading points. Much of it wasn’t terribly informative, but there was one lovely moment when a shouting match turned into a lesson on the fundamental meaning of American constitutional rights �?and the immigrant was the teacher.
“Let me talk,�?Munoz said to Corn. “I know the Constitution, and I know my First Amendment �?�?BR>
“I’m not the state,�?Corn said. “I can’t take that right away from you.�?BR>
“No, no,�?Munoz shot back. “Even the state, the state cannot take that right away.�?BR>
“Right, right,�?Corn quickly agreed.
“Nobody can take that away,�?Munoz said.
And indeed they can’t |
|
Reply
| |
Why is it that immigrants like Tito can see what a great country we have while the leftist imbeciles who grew up here want to change it to the same third world hellhole those immigrants left to get here? |
|
Reply
| |
tito probably had to bring his passport (and his loyalty oath to bush) just to get by the fascist thugs guarding the entry to the rally ... tito is another moron who wants govt services but wants other peoples children to have to grow up and pay for them ... another whining gop freeloader ... |
|
Reply
| |
tito is another moron who wants govt services Prove it, liar. |
|
Reply
| |
tito wants an immigration dept ... tito wants citizenship services ... tito wants licensing services ... tito wants a justice dept ... tito wants a military ... tito wants an FBI tito wants homeland security ... and tito wants more tax cuts ... tito is a corporate welfare queen who wants my kids future tax liability to increase, to maintain his lifestyle today ... tito is a pawn in the army of jokes ... |
|
|
First
Previous
2-6 of 6
Next
Last
|
|
|
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
Return to General