Posted on 11/29/2006 5:51:26 AM PST by Dane
Tancredo's slam of Miami irritates Florida Gov. Bush
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News November 29, 2006 Rep. Tom Tancredo drew fire from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and others Tuesday after saying the ethnically diverse city of Miami resembled "a Third World country."
Tancredo, R-Littleton, touched off a controversy when he said during a weekend summit of conservative activists at a Palm Beach resort that unfettered immigration, both legal and illegal, was behind problems like high crime rates in Miami.
"You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace," Tancredo said of Miami, according to the Web site WorldNetDaily. "You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."
The comments, later reported in the Miami Herald, drew scoldings from Florida lawmakers, including fellow Republicans.
On Tuesday night, Gov. Jeb Bush sent a pointed letter to Tancredo, calling his comments "disappointing" and "naïve."
Bush cited contributions by people of all ethnicities, and he pointed to shrinking crime rates and improvements in test scores posted by minority students.
"The bottom line is Miami is a wonderful city filled with diversity and heritage that we choose to celebrate, not insult," Bush wrote.
Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa said the congressman stood behind his comments, saying they echoed what he has said for years about isolated immigrant communities that resist assimilation and cling to their native languages and customs.
Espinosa said that contributes to poverty and crime, and he cited a recent documentary that claimed Miami was more dangerous than Baghdad, Iraq.
"It's as bad as any ghetto in any Third World country," Espinosa said.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican who represents Miami, disputed Tancredo's characterizations and invited him to come down to see her district for himself.
"Tom is a good friend of mine and I hope that he accepts my invitation to see my hometown, a first-class city," Ros-Lehtinen said Tuesday.
Espinosa joked that "unless it includes a five-star resort on the beach, he's not going to consider it."
Espinosa cited a 1993 Time magazine story that called Miami the "Capital of Latin America" and said some areas of the city "resemble the Third World, with the homeless and immigrants living under highways or in matchstick houses along canals."
Crime rates have gone down since then, but Espinosa said that through early November there had been more murders in Miami-Dade County (200) than in all of Colorado in 2005 (173).
Espinosa joked that "unless it includes a five-star resort on the beach, he's not going to consider it."
Maybe we can all pitch in and give as a Christmas present to Tom Tancredo, a Dale Carnegie course, he sure needs one, IMO.
Why can't the Congress Critters STOP PUTTING THEIR FOOT IN THEIR MOUTHS??? Jeeze you would think they would learn their lessons from the previous idiots!
Miami - not of this country.
-Eric
Tom Tancredo: a candidate so clueless that he couldn't beat Paul Tibbets for Mayor of Hiroshima.
Up Yours, Tom.
Be Seeing You,
Chris (proud Floridian)
I caught a lot of flak for pointing out that Tancredo doesn't know how to limit his rhetoric, and as a result, is doomed for national office.
People say his claims are truth, not rhetoric.
I disagree.
I agree that Miami is an example of multiculturism gone wrong, but it is hyperbole to call it a 3rd world nation/city.
Tom, like Pat Buchanan, is often right but doesn't seem to have a throttle on the tongue.
Exactly. What an idiot! He just squashed his presidential aspirations!
it could have been added an illegal has already committed one crime once the illegal comes into the country illegally, Lord only knows what other crimes the illegal will commit, or what crimes the illegal will ask someone else to commit. What crime(s) are you committing for illegals? A society based with a foundation on crime is a criminal society, and will crumble under its own weight.
Yeah, I grew up there and have to admit I've previously used the term "third world country" to describe it.
In half-seriousness, I expect a story about Rep. Tancredo whooping it up at a luxury hotel in Miami (at some sort of a conference) to emerge in a year or so.
Way to make friends and influence people, dork.
I live in Orlando, but get down to Miami every now and then. I would not consider Miami "like a third world country." That implies more than just a lot of Spanish speaking people--it implies poverty, and while they do have poverty in Miami, it's not like in a third world country. It's like every other large American city. They've got poverty, but they've got riches too. You have to go to the bad neighborhoods to see the poverty.
Some of them are worse in that respect than others. Tancredo is dead on with respect to some things. But he also sticks his shoe in the poop far too often.
Really he beat out Kerry for the national democrat presidential ticket?
For the most part the democrats hid Dean for most of the 2006 election season.
ROFLMAO!! I know I almost choked on my coffee when I read that.
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