Dear Phibian,
You believe that in picking Ryan, Mitt Romney "nailed it". Oh he nailed something all right-but he didn't nail his choice of VP pick. Actually, from a purely Democratic Party standpoint-this is the best news Obama has had in weeks.
For one thing it allows people to take Ryan's fraudulent budget and expose it to the kind of public execution it richly deserves. It did not get the kind of public scrutiny it deserved in 2011-and that's the fault of the Democratic Party for not publicly crucifying the man as the heartless bastard he really is. Oh they tried-it is just that they should have tried harder.
You claim that, "Romney's public and private sector record of success speaks for itself. Ryan is one of the only people in Congress who is willing to not only explain the unsustainable path we are on – but proposes a path forward. It isn't a path of unicorns poop'n Skittles, but it is a path founded on fact and math – grounded on reality. It is a path that treats us like adults."
Only if you are an adult who like being lied to. A lot. Romney's record of "success" is founded on a foundation of lies and a lot of bodies he victimized. His Bain Capital record speaks for itself. And Ryan, well this all you really need to know about Paul Ryan:
Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.
So why does Saletan believe otherwise? Has he crunched the numbers himself? Of course not. What he’s doing – and what the whole Beltway media crowd has done – is to slot Ryan into a role someone is supposed to be playing in their political play, that of the thoughtful, serious conservative wonk. In reality, Ryan is nothing like that; he’s a hard-core conservative, with a voting record as far right as Michelle Bachman’s, who has shown no competence at all on the numbers thing.
What Ryan is good at is exploiting the willful gullibility of the Beltway media, using a soft-focus style to play into their desire to have a conservative wonk they can say nice things about. And apparently the trick still works.
When in reality the man plays golf with Satan. He really is twisted individual deserving of much worse than I am allowed to say here. But know this-the man is personally and professionally a fraud.
Over at Balloon-Juice, they have no such misconceptions about the man. The see him as the truly heartless bastard that he is. And how did he get that way? The company he keeps:
The Romney/Ryan line is, basically, “It isn’t all your fault you’re lazy, but you are lazy, and we’re gonna get you off your lazy, fat asses whether you like it or not.” Hmmm. Winner?
And how did Ryan come to this sophisticated worldview? Well, it isn’t just reading Ayn Rand. It also involves lots of cozy dinners with fellow right-wing cranks drinking $350 bottles of wine.
That’s the image of Ryan we need to keep front and center. Him, sitting there, whining about how liberals are mean to millionaires while plotting ways to fuck the poor, drinking bottles of wine that each cost more than many Americans take home in a week. Heartless. Out-of-touch. Self-righteous. And cruel.
This is a really a ticket of paired sociopaths. Completely devoid of any empathy for the rest of us. It isn’t that they can’t feel other people’s pain. Rather, they think pain is good for us, and they are going to provide it whether we like it or not.
The man is truly the "zombie eyed granny starver" that Charles Pierce calls him. If he is the future of America-then America is well and truly fucked. And there is an extra added bonus to having this right wing dream team, the election will avoid asking the foreign policy questions that are still going to be with us-no matter who is elected. Especially if Israel bombs Iran.
But hey, enjoy the moment while it lasts. Because Paul Ryan was, is, and will remain a diabolically evil man.
