The Washington Post is keeping tabs on the candidate's lies -- little lies, big lies, silly lies, destructive lies. One in particular drives a lot of us nuts: the one where Ryan says Obama is guilty of something that Ryan himself did.
A convention speech is not a budget submission, even when, as with Mr. Ryan, it comes from the chairman of the House Budget Committee. But a party that claims to be willing to make hard choices ought to be prepared to spell some of them out. Mr. Ryan offered only the bare assertion that federal spending of 20 percent of the gross domestic product is “enough” — despite the aging of the population and Mr. Romney’s vow to keep defense spending alone at 4 percent.
Mr. Ryan has been an intellectual leader of his party on fiscal issues, and Mr. Romney’s decision to add him to the Republican ticket represented an opportunity to focus the debate on this urgent matter, “before,” as Mr. Ryan said Wednesday, “the math and the momentum overwhelm us all.” Mr. Ryan skewered the president in his speech for creating and then walking away from a bipartisan debt commission that, he said, “came back with an urgent report.” We’ve expressed similar frustrations, but omitted from Mr. Ryan’s self-serving rendition was the uncomfortable fact that Mr. Ryan served on that very commission but was unwilling to follow the brave lead of the Republican senators on the panel who supported its “urgent” recommendations. ...WaPo
Or this:
Mr. Ryan’s selection prompted a serious discussion of Medicare reform but also ushered in a depressingly predictable series of “Mediscare” charges and counter-charges. Mr. Ryan stooped to some of that Wednesday night, asserting that “the greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare,” although the health care law began the hard task of reforming the program. He assailed Mr. Obama for having “funneled” $716 billion out of Medicare, without mention that his own budget assumed cuts of precisely that magnitude. ...WaPo
Remember -- Republicans live in a pasture largely fertilized by Fox poop. When they turn their attention to the real world, it's no wonder they show symptoms of anxiety and frustration. Keeping lies alive takes a lot out of you. ...Particularly as the general election is just over the horizon and your candidate has lagged behind ever since he emerged from the primaries.
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For three years, says Jonathan Chait of Daily Intel -- and before that editor of the New Republic and American Prospect -- he has been writing about Paul Ryan, following his career. Actually, Chait says he has been writing about Ryan's "dishonesty." I guess we all know about the dishonesty by now. But let's get this straight:
Obama tried on numerous occasions to craft bipartisan agreements to reduce the long-term debt. Ryan, using the enormous intra-party influence he had amassed, crushed those agreements at every turn. Ryan voted against the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, killing its prospects. To complete the dishonesty, Ryan referred to the debt commission he served on and helped kill as “they,” not “we.” (Ryan’s defenders sometimes assert that he only voted against the plan because it failed to include privatized Medicare, but in fact Ryan opposed a compromise that would do that, as well.) Ryan killed a bipartisan Senate plan and also killed a negotiated debt settlement between Obama and John Boehner.
Part of Ryan’s logic at the time (according to two sources, one in each party) was that signing a deal “would pave the way for Mr. Obama’s easy reelection.” This was a plausible calculation — agreeing to a deficit compromise would have made it hard for Republicans to run against Obama as a left-wing spendthrift. And here was Ryan last night, running against Obama as a left-wing spendthrift, precisely as his own strategy enabled.
Incredibly, the larger theme of Ryan’s speech was to assail Obama for failing to take full responsibilities for this state of affairs — Obama is “shifting blame,” “blaming others.” It is the single largest motif of Ryan’s speech. Let’s review: Ryan helps to create a massive structural deficit, repeatedly and almost single-handedly prevents a solution, then runs for vice-president, blaming Obama for the structural deficit and further blaming him for his unwillingness to agree that this is all his own fault. The really amazing thing is that it could possibly work. ...Chait, Daily Intel
I don't think it's in the least bit amazing. It works because we have media that make it work.
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Well, damn! Look at Fox News' coverage of the Ryan speech. I am speechless!
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I did not know that Paul Ryan is known in his district as "Lyin' Ryan."
