Earlier today a quote from an aide to Sen. Marco Rubio snuck out and generated commentary all over.
‘There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it,’ a Rubio aide told me. ‘There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.’
But you can and should therefore legislate the job market so that these Americans who can’t cut it and aren’t stars will never get a decent job in their lives…?
Matt Lewis: Gee, it’s true, not everyone American is a stah!
Erick Erickson: Eh, let’s still give Rubio the benefit of the doubt.
Way to miss the point by a mile, guys. The first comment is classing trolling of one’s own audience. The second is way too generous given Rubio’s recent antics.
The aide’s comment drips with contempt both for American workers and for the rule of law. It’s another in the long line of “we need to legalize illegal aliens because they do jobs Americans won’t do.” Only here, the Rubio aide has added “can’t” to “won’t.” That’s a huge leap to make, and it says a lot about what that aide thinks of many American workers. They’re unwilling to work, and stupid to boot.
Look, I have no doubt that there are lots of Americans out there who are both lazy and stupid. American citizenship =/= sainthood. Liberal commenters come here and throw down the race card for any and every reason, serving up proof that both laziness and stupidity are alive and well in the US of A. That’s no excuse for government to then go out and legislate in millions of non-American workers to compete with American workers, violating the rule of law and insulting legal immigrants along the way. At any rate, just as not every American is a stah!, not every illegal alien who comes to America is a plucky, hard-working dreamer who’s just trying to get by. The hole through which illegal aliens get here is the same hole through which illicit drugs get here, and could be the same hole through which terrorists get here. It’s fundamentally a national security issue.
Sen. Rubio may or may not believe that we need to legalize millions of illegal aliens so they’ll do jobs that Americans can’t do. His staffer certainly believes it, though, and has caused a train wreck for his boss’ bill.
Rubio and company did try pushing back. They even argued that the quote was taken out of context. That made things worse, when reporter Ryan Lizza released the entire context. The context doesn’t help their cause at all. It shows that the Rubio aide thinks nothing of the millions of Americans who are unemployed. Even in the Obama economy and the push to legalize millions of new foreign workers, the aide blames the unemployed for their plight. Oh, and by the way, none of the millions who entered the country illegally are either lazy or stupid. Not a one of them. The Frenchman who came here on a student visa, dropped out of college after a week and has been living off his girlfriend? Not lazy! Not stupid!
If you’re an aide on the Hill, the last thing you should become is a major hindrance for your boss because you said something contemptuous of millions of Americans during a charged debate (or any other time, really). This aide is bad at his job. He is not a star. He just can’t cut it. Unfortunately, no one is in a position to legislate him out of a job.
He sounds like a bigot, to be honest. Maybe Lindsey Graham should tell him to “shut up.”
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