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).
You live in LA and say it's not a third toilet despite the fact that it is. Talk about ignorance. Maybe you should change the shade of your glasses.
Can't we all just celebrate diversity and get along ?
Never mind.
What's your home worth? You know not of what you speak.
Just like your fallen idol, Tancredo.
Remember tancredo used illegal labor to enahance the value of his home(basement theater).
But of course that was the contractor's fault and not tancredo's since he was in DC to busy shouting his loudmouth off, and could not oversee who was actually building his basement theater, according to the tancredbots.
Term Limit Liar, Hypocrite, Grifter and Blowhard...Good Riddance.
I know plenty about what I speak. I live on the ass end of Calfornia near the Mexican Border. It's a third world toilet here too. It's not as big of a crapper as LA but still has that quaint aura of a third world country.
They don't teach economics at the Border Union, obviously. Did you even need a high school diploma?
I live on the ass end of Calfornia near the Mexican Border.
Get a better job and move.
When I stated that every one of the thousand or so illegal's I've caught live in LA, that wasn't completely accurate. Many of the illegal aliens I've caught stated that LA was too much of third world turd receptacle for even them to live in.
There is no better job except maybe for the LAPD. I like where I live. I'm attracted to the violence and the chaos that third world dumps afford. If I had had any idea how much of a shining jewel of colossal turdism that LA is I would have joined my friends in going into the LAPD and LACSO.
Dane's from Pennsylvania, home of open borders Arlen Specter. He seems to know everything there is about every other state in the country and has an opinion about them, including their politicians, but rarely talks those from where he lives.
Because brainiac, he was in South Florida - Palm Beach to be exact. Which is approximately 64 miles from said 3rd World Country, aka Miami, FL.
'Depends on where you lived.
Where I reluctantly moved to (after 40 years in South Miami), we had two kinds of "sound trucks": One played salsa music at full bass through speakers mounted in a large panel van. (Although sometimes huge speakers were placed stationary on downtown sidewalks, vibrating every body who happened to drive by).
The other had two large loudspeakers and announced Cuban politics in Spanish while driving through the neighborhood. I'm sooo glad I left. Geez—twenty years ago, announcements in Sears stores were made in Spanish!
My point, though, is that being a "Third World Country" is more than just being Hispanic. The fundamental distinction is economics. Miami does not resemble a Third World Country in that regard.
Peter Principle.
Unfortunately you don't realize that if it wasn't for people like me in the LAPD and the Border Patrol the illegal alien criminals that you love so much would turn you over the nearest stationary object and give you the "American Me" treatement.
Your corrupt Union is a big part of the problem.
...give you the "American Me" treatement.
Telling choice of words. Your anger isn't about Mexicans is it?
Being a supporter of criminals I can understand you hatred of law enforcement. Why don't you just drop the pretenses and admit what everyone already knows. You are an open borders criminal lover. Just admit it, you'll feel better.
Which candidate will you whine and lie for next? Simcox?
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