Papers, Please

Byron York has a fascinating account of a weekend rally for Senator John McCain and the outrage that has been directed at the media thanks to their sliming of Joe the Plumber. But the most striking moment was an encounter with one of those working-class Americans and what it says about the future of our country:

 

In the audience Saturday, there were plenty of people who were mad about it. There was real anger at this rally, but it wasn’t, as some erroneous press reports from other McCain rallies have suggested, aimed at Obama. It was aimed at the press. And that’s where Tito Munoz came in.
 
After McCain left, as the crowd filed out, Munoz made his way to an area near some loudspeakers. He attracted a few reporters when he started talking loudly, in heavily-accented English, about media mistreatment of Wurzelbacher. (It was clear that Spanish was Munoz’s native language, and he later told me he was born in Colombia.) When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree.
 
“Are you going to check my license, too?” he asked me. “Are you going to check my immigration status? I’m ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport — “

I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked.
 
“Yeah, I have my papers right here,” he said. “I’m an American citizen. Right here, right here.” With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose. “Right here,” he said. “In your face.”

This is what it has come to in this country. The fact that Mr. Munoz found it necessary to bring along his papers to prove his citizenship shows there are real reasons to worry about what an Obama administration will look like. Will the change it promises to bring be positive or more like other countries that hungered for the type of “change” that is big on promises but lacks specifics?

 

Americans have every right to be afraid of what will happen to their rights to free speech should Senator Obama win the election. If the Obama administration doesn’t use their power to suppress dissenting speech then they will just sic their media lapdogs on citizens to destroy them. Just ask Joe Wurzelbacher.