Flower Shops and Bodegas
by digby
What planet does this man live on?
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Antonio—Antonio Villaraigosa?
MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA (D), LOS ANGELES: Villaraigosa.
MATTHEWS: Villaraigosa. Is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since, catch this, 1872. He’s also been picked, more importantly, to deliver the Spanish-speaking response to the president’s State of the Union address next week. Well, the big question is, will it sound different in a different language, your response, from the Democrats’ response of the Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia?
VILLARAIGOSA: Well, the answer is I made it absolutely clear that I had to have control of the editorial content of this response, since it’s mine. And I thought it’s important—I think any message should be a hopeful message, a positive message, one that speaks to the American dream for more people.
MATTHEWS: What’s the difference in tenor when you speak in English and Spanish? Is there more of a—a more of a—I don’t want to be derogatory, but I know it sounds better. It’s more upbeat? It’s more positive? What would be—call it—more romantic?
VILLARAIGOSA: No, I try to—well, first of all, I was born in the U.S., so my English is a lot stronger than my Spanish, but I say that the message is the same
Is he drunk? The State of the Union response will sound more romantic in spanish? Jesus H.Christ. Maybe we can get Marc Antony and J-Lo to sing the motherfucker, Chris. With a taco in one hand and a pinata in the other.
This is why we cannot have people ever thinking this man is a Democrat. It’s rich, pampered beltway bubble boys like him who are killing us.
But that wasn’t all. Tweety, the voice of the manly working man, had this to say about immigrants:
MATTHEWS: When I think of people who have come to this country from other countries where they speak Spanish—Puerto Rico is not another country, but it’s the commonwealth—hardest working people, they are extremely entrepreneurial. If it’s just owning a flower ship, it’s owning a small business, a bodega, right? Puerto Ricans come to this country to start business. Cubans certainly come here to start businesses. The hardest working people in the United States are people who just got here from Mexico, the first day they get here. Everybody knows—they don’t want a big social democracy. They want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism, don’t they?
VILLARAIGOSA: I think what they want…
MATTHEWS: They sound like they’re natural Republicans to me.
That’s certainly the first time I’ve heard “needing to earn a dollar so I can eat today” described as being “entrepreneurial.” Or Republican.
Poor people are natural Republicans because they work hard to survive. I assume the opposite is true as well. Rich people are natural Democrats because they sit on their asses all day like parasites living off of other people’s hard work. No? Oh that’s right. Rich people are the most productive people in the economy so they shouldn’t be asked to pay a fair share of their income — because they’d lose their motivation to work so hard. See how this works? Everybody who works or hires people who work is a natural Republican in Tweety’s world. Fifty percent of the nation just doesn’t know it. Except for the fags, of course. And the bitches. And the blacks.
Tweety likes to see himself as a man of the people and he is. He’s a man of the rich celebrity people. But even in his little beltway bubble he still has his finger on the pulse of one fine group of regular Americans: the bigots:
The mayor got a firsthand look at the different values held by some Americans as he was peppered with questions about immigration from callers on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal.”
After saying that Los Angeles is not going to follow the lead of Costa Mesa and involve police officers more in identifying illegal immigrants, a caller from Arkansas said not enough was being done to counter illegal immigration.
The woman declared: “It’s only after the influx of illegals that you were elected, sir. How is this possible?”
Clearly stunned, Villaraigosa responded, “Are you kidding?” After a long silence, he added, “I was born in the United States.”
The mayor of the second biggest city in the nation has to inform bigoted assholes from Arkansas and big money celebrities on MSNBC alike that he was born in America and English is his first language. Unbelievable.
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