McCain Thinks American Workers Are Lazy

Today Atrios has reminded me of an incident that I meant to blog at some point.

Two years ago, when he was just beginning his run for the presidency, John McCain spoke to a group of AFL-CIO leaders in Washington D.C. At the time McCain was pushing his guest worker bill, and to advance his arguments he basically stated that American workers are just too lazy to do the hard work that immigrants do.

Here is the report from MSNBC:

But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.

“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.”

Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

"You can't do it"???

This is just insulting and infuriating. No matter what you position is on immigration reform, it is inconceivable to think that Americans who take much worse jobs for much less pay would turn down $50/hour to pick lettuce.

Although audio of this encounter exists, I'm not sure if there is any video. I hope so, because it will make a devastating ad come the fall campaign. Can you imagine if Barack Obama or any Democrat told a group of Americans that they were too lazy to take a $50/hour job? That's $2000 per week, over $100,000 per year! Is McCain really so out of touch, or is his opinion of the American work ethic so low?

Just one more reason not to vote for this mean old geezer.