Paul Ryan: Finally, an honest politician.
tomlet
Published
09/03/2012
You guys know I hate politicians. For me, it's always picking the least offensive candidate. This year I used isidewith.com to check my beliefs and issues with policies against candidate's. It's a good tool, you should check it out if you plan on voting. I wasn't expecting a surprise. I was expecting to hate Romney more than Obama. It turns out that I agree with Jill Stein, the green party candidate, slightly more than Obama. I'm a fan of third party candidates and understand that voting for one isn't a wasted vote at all. I'm not sure that I have the flexibility to do that this election as Romney bugs the hell out of me. The way he's pandered to the right and changed his politics from when he was a MA. governor is appalling. I was encouraged when he added Ryan to his ticket.
Ryan was a Republican I liked. I disagreed with him on a lot of issue, for sure. But I had respect for him. I didn't like his budget proposals, but I had enormous respect for him having the guts to put them out there when he knew they were going to be viciously scrutinized and never adopted. What I liked most about him was his reputation of uncompromising honesty.
Good news, everybody! I now hate Ryan as much as anybody and my respect for him has evaporated completely. He is as much a lying dirtbag as any candidate. First of all, his RNC speech made him almost dead to me. He parroted all the out of context quotes, gross exaggerations about what other people said, and dishonest political adds being run against his opponents. I was hoping that he'd be silent about that crap, choosing instead to be the voice of reason among those shouting Obama is a witch.
He said that Obama's plan for health care funnels $700 million away from medicare, "gutting it at the expense of the elderly." It turns out the savings will come from payments to providers, Medicare itself says it'll make the program more solvent, and these savings were actually in Ryan's own budget plan. This got him a "false" rating on politifact.com.
He brought up that Obama promised a GM plant in Wisconsin would remain open for another 100 years if it got the right support. He then said that Obama broke his promise because it was closed in less than a year. What he didn't say is it closed at the end of 2008 when Bush was president. Another "false" rating here from politifact.
Ryan criticized the stimulus package Obama passed, but it turns out he tried to get some of that money for his own state, trying to get energy grant money for two companies. So, in his words, he thought it was "political patronage" and "corporate cronyism", but he wanted his state to get a cut of that patronage and cronyism too.
For me, the worst part of his RNC speech is how he jump on board with the out of context quote of Obama saying "you didn't build that." Instead of the unremarkable claim the president made that if you have a successful business, some of that success came from tax support of building roads and public education, Ryan suggests that the president was saying you don't deserve credit for starting your successful business. Let's see you have your successful new dry cleaning business in Somalia where there are no streets, no utilities, and no police to keep roving bands of marauders from ransacking you.
The final nail in the coffin of respect I might have had for Ryan came the other day, when on Hugh Hewitt's radio program, he bragged about running a marathon in less than three hours. As somebody who used to run marathons in high school and afterwards, this is kind of a big deal. Finishing a marathon at all is impressive, but running it in less than three hours means you ran flat out for the whole thing. It means you had to average about 6:50/mile for 26 miles. Most people can't run a mile in less than seven minutes at all. Keeping that up for hours is an impressive feat. It turns out, in his entire life he's only run one marathon and it took him more than four hours to finish it.
Please don't insult my intelligence by saying he "misremembered" his time or that it was an "honest" mistake. It wasn't. When you break three in a marathon, it's a big deal. It's like breaking 80 in golf. It's a milestone. You don't think you've done it if you haven't. You don't forget you've done it if you have. I broke three when I was a senior in high school. It was transcendent. So Ryan's claim either makes him a liar or a bizarre fabulist who imagines his own realities.
Ryan even implied that he was in the habit of running marathons, not that it was something he'd done once:
Hewitt: Are you still running?
Ryan: I hurt a disc in my back, so I don't run marathons anymore.
Kind of misleading, right?
Me: So Mr. Ryan, you used to run marathons a lot?
Ryan: No, I ran a marathon once. My time was kind of mediocre, but I finished.
Look, nobody should even care how fast Ryan could run a marathon. It makes no difference for his qualifications for being vice president. But he lied about it when he didn't even have to. He tried to make himself look cool by making shit up on a radio show that could be easily refuted. He parroted all of the inane shit in super PAC political adds that fact checking websites had already refuted as bullshit.
I had finally found a Republican politician I had respect for and he's just as shitty as all the other ones, Democrat and Republican.
Ryan was a Republican I liked. I disagreed with him on a lot of issue, for sure. But I had respect for him. I didn't like his budget proposals, but I had enormous respect for him having the guts to put them out there when he knew they were going to be viciously scrutinized and never adopted. What I liked most about him was his reputation of uncompromising honesty.
Good news, everybody! I now hate Ryan as much as anybody and my respect for him has evaporated completely. He is as much a lying dirtbag as any candidate. First of all, his RNC speech made him almost dead to me. He parroted all the out of context quotes, gross exaggerations about what other people said, and dishonest political adds being run against his opponents. I was hoping that he'd be silent about that crap, choosing instead to be the voice of reason among those shouting Obama is a witch.
He said that Obama's plan for health care funnels $700 million away from medicare, "gutting it at the expense of the elderly." It turns out the savings will come from payments to providers, Medicare itself says it'll make the program more solvent, and these savings were actually in Ryan's own budget plan. This got him a "false" rating on politifact.com.
He brought up that Obama promised a GM plant in Wisconsin would remain open for another 100 years if it got the right support. He then said that Obama broke his promise because it was closed in less than a year. What he didn't say is it closed at the end of 2008 when Bush was president. Another "false" rating here from politifact.
Ryan criticized the stimulus package Obama passed, but it turns out he tried to get some of that money for his own state, trying to get energy grant money for two companies. So, in his words, he thought it was "political patronage" and "corporate cronyism", but he wanted his state to get a cut of that patronage and cronyism too.
For me, the worst part of his RNC speech is how he jump on board with the out of context quote of Obama saying "you didn't build that." Instead of the unremarkable claim the president made that if you have a successful business, some of that success came from tax support of building roads and public education, Ryan suggests that the president was saying you don't deserve credit for starting your successful business. Let's see you have your successful new dry cleaning business in Somalia where there are no streets, no utilities, and no police to keep roving bands of marauders from ransacking you.
The final nail in the coffin of respect I might have had for Ryan came the other day, when on Hugh Hewitt's radio program, he bragged about running a marathon in less than three hours. As somebody who used to run marathons in high school and afterwards, this is kind of a big deal. Finishing a marathon at all is impressive, but running it in less than three hours means you ran flat out for the whole thing. It means you had to average about 6:50/mile for 26 miles. Most people can't run a mile in less than seven minutes at all. Keeping that up for hours is an impressive feat. It turns out, in his entire life he's only run one marathon and it took him more than four hours to finish it.
Please don't insult my intelligence by saying he "misremembered" his time or that it was an "honest" mistake. It wasn't. When you break three in a marathon, it's a big deal. It's like breaking 80 in golf. It's a milestone. You don't think you've done it if you haven't. You don't forget you've done it if you have. I broke three when I was a senior in high school. It was transcendent. So Ryan's claim either makes him a liar or a bizarre fabulist who imagines his own realities.
Ryan even implied that he was in the habit of running marathons, not that it was something he'd done once:
Hewitt: Are you still running?
Ryan: I hurt a disc in my back, so I don't run marathons anymore.
Kind of misleading, right?
Me: So Mr. Ryan, you used to run marathons a lot?
Ryan: No, I ran a marathon once. My time was kind of mediocre, but I finished.
Look, nobody should even care how fast Ryan could run a marathon. It makes no difference for his qualifications for being vice president. But he lied about it when he didn't even have to. He tried to make himself look cool by making shit up on a radio show that could be easily refuted. He parroted all of the inane shit in super PAC political adds that fact checking websites had already refuted as bullshit.
I had finally found a Republican politician I had respect for and he's just as shitty as all the other ones, Democrat and Republican.
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