Turns out DougJ’s spidey sense about Ryan running a marathon in under three hours was correct:
Slate and Runner’s World investigated. Questions were raised, given the questions about Ryan’s honesty in his convention speech. This evening the terrific running journalist, Scott Douglas, figured out that Ryan had actually run a 4:01 in Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1991, when he was a college student. This is not quite so fast. A 2:55 would have put Ryan 130th out of 3277 men in that race. A 4:01 put him 1990th. It’s the difference between racing and running.
I contacted the campaign this evening about the discrepancy. Ryan, through a spokesman, responded that he’d just mixed things up. “The race was more than 20 years ago, but my brother Tobin—who ran Boston last year—reminds me that he is the owner of the fastest marathon in the family and has never himself ran a sub-three. If I were to do any rounding, it would certainly be to four hours, not three. He gave me a good ribbing over this at dinner tonight.”
It’s an easy mistake to make. Just like saying that when you want to gut Medicare and turn it into a radically underfunded coupon system for the elderly you actually are preserving Medicare for future generations. He was probably just using Megan McCardle’s calculator. Nothing to see here.
These people will lie about anything and everything. Period. There is no other way to describe people like this other than sociopaths.
kc
Shit, I’VE run a marathon faster than that.
amk
A fucking congenital liar, who runs away from the truth.
LongHairedWeirdo
Yeah, mixed things up. He was only 61 seconds away from a sub-4 marathon, and that’s really easy to mistakenly round down to sub-3.
presquevu
Thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide Paul Ryan’s lies.
beltane
Love how he had to drag his brother into it. Is it too much to ask that he behave like a grown man? It almost makes me nostalgic for the realism of the Runner’s World cover featuring Sarah Palin dressed to go running with her pantyhose on.
Arclite
The difference between running a 3 hour marathon and a 4 hour marathon is night and day. I’ve done several marathons: 4:20, 4:05, 3:55 and my best: 3:38. They are incredibly painful, and you are completely aware of your time, the pace you had to set to make that time, the trouble you encountered along the way (I actually walked on my fastest one having gone out too fast trying for a 3:15 so I could qualify for Boston).
3 hours is elite. Very few can accomplish that. 4 hours is doable by a lot of folks with a decent training regimen.
Point is, you don’t “misremember” you did 3 hours when you actually did 4. Not buying it. Asshole.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@amk:
__
I think perhaps we’ve found the Ryan/Romney 2012 campaign theme song:
__
I can’t seem to face up to the facts
I’m tense and nervous and I
Can’t relax
I can’t sleep ’cause my bed’s on fire
Don’t touch me I’m a real live wire
__
we all know how this ends…
vtr
Yeah, on May 11, 1981 I ran a 3:46:47 at the Plattsburgh, NY marathon. Thirty-one years later, I remember my time.
Violet
This is the guy who’s supposed to be good with numbers? McMegan might want to look for her calculator. It looks like it’s missing.
Evolving Deep Southerner
As I said in a thread lower down, Pat Robertson can leg press 2,000 pounds. So Paul Ryan can suck Pat Robertson’s dick.
ETA: And according to Robertson, it’s 14″ long.
General Stuck
You libtards and your facto smactos. Why do you hate baby jeevus!!??
beltane
Jon McNaughton must be feeling sad about the election. His latest masterpiece shows that he has just about given up: mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/423
B
At this point, I’d be very surprised if he were telling the truth about having dinner with his brother.
TenguPhule
Dungeaters? Those who need to be up against the wall when the revolution comes?
arguingwithsignposts
But how good a journalist is he when he’s just walking, huh?
poco
Okay guys– we have a serious meme here–Paul Ryan is a LIAR even on small issues. He can’t help lying. We really need to make this viral.
Frank Rich and Modo made it viral for Al Gore when there was no evidence. But surely with Paul Ryan with his lying convention speech and this marathon lie–huge evidence–the BJ’ers can hang the pants on fire epithet on SEGS for the next 2 months.
Bobby Thomson
Can anyone be confident that Ryan is the same Paul D. Ryan who ran Grandma’s in 1990? That guy lived in Minneapolis. Congressman Ryan went to college in Ohio and had his permanent residence in Wisconsin, so far as I know. Maybe a staffer googled Paul D. Ryan and marathon results for a few hours in the right time frame to come up with something they could say was close.
Violet
In some ways this is good news. The headlines after Ryan’s speech were all about how Ryan lied and #LyinRyan was trending. So what’s he do for his first act after the convention? Get caught in a really stupid lie. The press is going to be all over him now. Can he be trusted? What’s he lying about now? This sort of self-fluffing stupid lie and ridiculous walk-back does not help him at all.
fubar
Ran just over 2 hrs (2:01 or so) for a half-marathon in two successive years. So now I just say it was an hour and change. Easy mistake.
Only a total douche bag liar makes statements like that. Or a sociopath. Which do you think is Paul Ryan?
Hill Dweller
Stewart’s first segment was great(both he and Colbert are doing Friday night shows this week).
L. Ron Obama
@arguingwithsignposts: Or his native american counterpart, chief running journalist
beltane
But Al Gore said he invented the internet. And he’s fat. Paul Ryan isn’t fat. Take that, libtards.
ericblair
@Arclite:
As other people here have, I’ve run sub-4:00 marathons. Not easy, but quite doable by a weekend warrior. I will never run a sub-3:00, I’m quite sure about that. Mr. Ryan here fucked up by a) lying too much about something every marathoner is anal about; and b) not realizing how much runners hate people who lie about their times.
Maybe we can do this for something that matters.
? Martin
@Bobby Thomson:
His spokesman said he ran Grandma’s in 1991. It’s him. Did he run it again in ’91 and no time was posted? Possibly, but I’m betting he ’rounded’ his time down.
lamh35
Do yourselves a favor and watch the repeat of The Daily Show. Tonight’s show was new and Jon talked about Clint Eastwood. It was pretty funny. I can just imagine how Colbert will do.
“The Old Man and The Seat”…AHAHAHAHAHA
Bobby Thomson
@? Martin: I know his spokesperson said that. I also know Paul D. Ryan is a common name. I also know that in 1990 Ryan was a student in Ohio, not Minneapolis, and would have no reason to put Minneapolis on his race application. And I know that Ryan lies about a lot of stuff. So I see no reason to believe it’s the same Ryan just because his spokesperson says so.
suzanne
I really wish we could turn Paul Ruan’s lies into something worthwhile. Like, every time he lies, I get a shot of tequila. Or an angel gets its wings. Or a Mormon dude gets another wife. whatever.
beltane
@Bobby Thomson: Wouldn’t it be funny if the Paul Ryan who actually ran the race appeared to clear his good name.
mai naem
Charlie Pierce says Ryan is the newer better Nixon. I am too young to remember Nixon in his prime but from what I’ve read and heard about Nixon, it sounds about right. If Paul Ryan knew somebody was going to look up his race time years later, he would have made sure he got hold of the records and changed them so that he would look better.
Kinda OT, I just watched Bill Maher – Dinesh D’Souza just got bitchslapped and pwnd by Maher and Ron Christie got slapped around by the other people on the panel. Definitely one of his best recent shows.
lamh35
@Hill Dweller: Stewarts first segment was the best. It’s the best I’ve seen from him this whole season.
It was Stewart really at his best.
amk
Breaking: paul ryan claims hole-in-one in atlanta open. politifact sez half-true.
jl
Luke 42:16 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
David Koch
Romney/Rosie Ruiz 2012
Honest Observations
He fibbed about a sports performance? Oh noes! WORSE THAN WATERGATE!!1!1!!!
Clearly Ryan is doomed!
Get a grip, guys. He must really have you all in a panicked tizzy.
mai naem
@suzanne: Best way to use it would be to raise money for Obama off the lies. Donate a buck or two bucks everytime he lies or something.
amk
@Honest Observations: projection much ?
Violet
@Bobby Thomson: This is a good point. I wonder if the real Paul D. Ryan is out there. Would be hilarious if he was a Democrat and is upset Ryan is stealing his marathon accomplishment.
suzanne
@mai naem: I’d go broke too fast.
Chris
@mai naem:
Poor Nixon. Getting compared to Paul Ryan? He doesn’t deserve that.
Chyron HR
@Honest Observations:
Kid, you’re the one literally screaming at us to stop talking about your new Messiah’s pathological lying.
Still, at least it’s not as bad as back in the spring where every single day you would sit at your computer sobbing that the Supreme Court was going to abolish Obamacare. How’d that one work out for you?
Jamey
@fubar: “Can’t he be both, like the late Earl Warren?” — Homer Simpson
Chris
@Chyron HR:
I actually LOL’d.
Honest Observations
Chuckie Pierce is already shitting his pants because he knows Romney/Ryan will sail to victory.
El Cid
Every morning I run 3 marathons and average 2 1/2 hours each.
It’s this sort of training which gets me ready to throw my neighbors off their Medicaid.
Jamey
In a just universe, Congressman Ryan’s Secret Service handle henceforth will be, “Marathon Man.”
Allen
When in High School during the Bill Bowerman days, in Eugene when I was a runner, I remember my coach saying 6 minute miles were “jogger’s miles” and we should be able to run at that pace ALL day. Best I ever came to “all day” was 6 miles in 30 minutes and I was dead.
jwb
@Honest Observations: No, but I see Ryan makes you feel tingly all over. STARBURSTS! VICTORY!
Honest Observations
Still jacking off to your faded Obama posters in your childhood bedrooms?
Violet
@Honest Observations: Are they going to sail at a World Cup pace?
Jamey
@Honest Observations: Maybe. But what does that have to do with Paul Ryan committing an incredibly stupid (and revealing) unforced error?
Troll better, please.
Jamey
@Violet: Pfffft. Tea all over the keyboard! Oh, Violet, please don’t ever change!
L. Ron Obama
@Allen: Isn’t that a 5-minute mile? If you like we can chalk up the difference to rounding error
Honest Observations
Do you think anyone really cares about this?
Clinton lied about his workouts too. Bush lied about them. Every politician bullshits his workout routines.
Bill Clinton blabbed about running seven minute miles when he was 30 pounds overweight in 1993 (and we also know now that he was incubating heart disease), and George W. Bush published a his “workout” that looked like something a linebacker from the New England Patriots would do.
Ash Can
Awesome.
Just. Fucking. Awesome.
Chyron HR
@Honest Observations:
Sadly, no. Turns out nothing drives Republicans up the walls like a black person that they’re not allowed to throw peanuts at while calling him an “animal”.
Then again, your first pick for President was Pawlenty, so I guess you’re just not very good at this.
Joseph Nobles
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Oh, my, I laughed heartily.
jwb
@Honest Observations: You seem to care an awful lot about it. How many posts have you put up here? You seem kind of anxious. Maybe you should take a little Xanax to calm yourself down.
Honest Observations
@Chyron HR:
Cool story, bro.
Mike E
No wonder he wants to starve granny. Damn you, 3 hour time limit!
btw, I am having fun over there with the douches at Runners World…algore is fat!
arguingwithsignposts
@Honest Observations: Did the commenters at LGM hurt your feelings so you had to come back over here, verislob?
trollhattan
I’m sitting in awe of how much McMegan’s stopwatch would improve my athletic prowess. Also, too, I just drank two barrels of ale.
Honest Observations
Best part of the DNC: Bill Clinton will speak in the exact same time slot, on the same night, as the NFL Kickoff game.
Sucks for you huh? All those white working class voters Obambi thinks he can reach with Clinton will be watching the game instead.
Scheduling fail on Obambi’s part.
The Republic of Stupidity
@poco:
This… if Ryan can’t even tell the truth about something as inconsequential as his time for running a marathon, how in Dog’s name can he be trusted w/ something truly important?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Honest Observations: It’s a good thing that it’s 2012 and not 1992 and Bill is not running for president. Gosh, we narrowly dodged that bullet.
Soonergrunt
Reading the Runners World page on Facebook is fucking awesome!
The butt hurt is just amazing.
Weepy conservatives claiming to cancel their subscriptions to this magazine that they’ve just discovered is a liberal publication because it wants verification of an astounding claim that is well within their wheel house.
PeakVT
@Honest Observations: Kid, go text some of the other kids at your school. You never know, they might not all hate you.
Honest Observations
The party that supported Bill Clinton for EIGHT YEARS is calling out a politician from the other party for being a “patological liar”?. LOL good luck with that.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Soonergrunt: that’s pathetic. I hope Runners World tells them to go fuck themselves.
Violet
@Mike E:
Went over to check out the comments, OMG, Tunch is commenting:
John, do you know where your cat is?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@PeakVT: I’m sure that the torrent of “ZOMG KILL URSELF NOW LZR” messages are meant in good-natured jest.
Chris
@Soonergrunt:
As you can see right here.
Spaghetti Lee
He’s going the distance.
He’s going for speed.
amk
@Soonergrunt: the whiny whiteys – same schtick, year after year.
MikeJ
As the person who performed the first heart-lung transplant, we know Ryan would never harm Medicare.
amk
@Spaghetti Lee: boldly going where no one has gone before – into the slimy ditch.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@MikeJ: ftw!
Chyron HR
@Honest Observations:
Eight whole years? Why, that’s as long as you supported George “The Constitution is just a god-damned piece of paper” Bush and his buddy, Dick “Deficits don’t matter” Cheney.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Next Ryan will say he has a 9 inch unit.
Republicans will swallow that lie, too.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
Why does BJ always end up with the low-rent trolls?
Even LGM has Manju.
Aside from Oliver Willis, we get the cheapest one-note trolls. meh. I blame wordpress. somehow, I know it’s to blame. =)
Soonergrunt
@Chyron HR: Dishonest Observations is a conservative. You know that for him, there was no George W. Bush administration.
trollhattan
@Honest Observations:
Pro tip: the moment you “el oh el” you lose your nickle.
Bmaccnm
@Honest Observations: I remember all the chortling and spitting about how all the lefties were terrified of Sarah Palin. How’d that work out for you?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Soonergrunt: There’s not a single Republican that ever voted for George W. Bush. Just ask them. You won’t find one.
In 10 years they’ll be claiming George W. Bush was a Democrat.
arguingwithsignposts
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Where do you think Dishonest Blatherings came from in the first place? He’s on loan from LGM since the normal fuckface trolls can’t keep up.
Chris
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
For smurf’s sake, we had Tokoloko Atreides for how long? Let’s not sell ourselves short here. Not many websites can boast such a doggedly persistent and singularly effective troll.
Soonergrunt
@danah gaz (fka gaz): It’s almost enough to make one miss BoB. He was a batshit crazy racist misogynist, but he had style.
Mike E
@Violet: The funny thing is that I commented on the previous article about my 13 mile run after completing an Outward Bound course in CO. 1:45:45. In 1980. My only timed run of any distance in my entire life…and I remembered that shit. Also, I climbed a 14er (14,015) so that makes me VP material fershur!
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@arguingwithsignposts: “He’s on loan from LGM”
This explains a lot. LGM is clever enough to dump the lemons on us. The tweedy elitist bastards. =)
handy
@Soonergrunt:
yeah, bodies-buried-in-the-basement style.
GxB
@Spaghetti Lee:
Indeed the sun has gone down and the moon has come up,
and long ago somebody left with the cup
Goddamn those fuckers had some funny songs – I always dug their version of “I Will Survive.”
handy
I was just at LGM reading their OH thread, they have a troll there who actually stalks Joe from Lol. I’m sure we’re dealing with the same character here.
jwb
@Soonergrunt: I think BoB was around the other night, posting under another pseudonym.
Triassic Sands
@amk:
Runs away from the truth?
I doubt Ryan would recognize the truth if it walked up and bit him on the ass.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@jwb: The one that was going on about Hanuman the Monkey God? If it wasn’t him, whoever it was needs to find him and marry him. If whatever state BoB lives in allows that.
? Martin
@jwb: Yeah, I spotted him a few weeks ago under another name. Called him out immediately and he went away.
Hawes
To be fair, Ryan is so bad at math and shit, he probably thought he DID run a sub 3 hour marathon.
Soonergrunt
@Violet: He’s actually claiming to have climbed 40 14ers? I grew up in Colorado, and I have friends who still live there who haven’t managed 40 14ers in 30 years.
I’d love to see a link to that claim.
Brachiator
No, it is much simpler than that. Ryan is trying to pitch himself as an example of the Ultimate Real American Christian White Man ™. So, unlike that effete gurly man Obama, Ryan can bring down a dominant buck with a bow and arrow, run a marathon, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and come back home to the hearth, where his wife will be waiting to be implanted with his all American sperm so that she can bring forth mighty Republican boys.
The lies all have the same vile flavor and turn on the same Americanized Christian Zealot Meets Ayn Rand themes. It’s a Tea Party Lullaby.
It’s not that Paul Ryan can’t help himself. Team Romney knows exactly what it is doing. They also seem to believe that they can control the resentment and racism in which they choose to wallow, that if they win the election, they will be able to shout a few commands and make the wingnut base heel like a good little doggie.
magurakurin
@Honest Observations: pretty sure the owner of this blog wasn’t a Clinton voter.
And if your digging down into “it’s Clinton’s fault,” you are not even worthy of the title troll. You’re just a shit sucking scumbag like your good ole buddy Paul “my Dad can whip your Dad” Ryan. FOADIAF
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@beltane: Every time I see one of his, uh, things, I keep thinking that it must be an interactive spoof like PalinasPresident.
Sadly, no.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Brachiator:
Once again, when he can leg press as much as Pat Robertson, I’ll consider voting for him. Not before.
cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-1662789.html
jwb
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Yup, that’s the one.
Violet
@Soonergrunt: I’m just seeing it stated as fact, not a link to when it was mentioned. Like this from the Denver Post:
Not sure where it originated.
Mandalay
@Allen:
Hmmm…so fast, and yet so humble.
If you really ran that fast then you are only three and a bit minutes off the world record set by Steve Prefontaine in 1974!
Isn’t it more likely that you are suffering from the dreaded “Ryan’s Syndrome”, where the patient recalls their past achievements in an absurdly flattering manner?
slag
If one is to believe teh interwebs, Paul Ryan is almost certainly a pathological liar:
NotMax
He had a plan to run in 2:50.
Getting bogged down in details just gives his opponents ammunition, don’tcha know.
kravenkraaken
Additional Paul Ryan spectacular feats of athleticism?
Ryan once was so into fitness that he became a personal trainer. After graduating from Ohio’s Miami University in 1992, he considered a sports career, with skiing—freestyle or mogul—as a possible choice.
gazettextra.com/news/2012/aug/20/ryan-fitness-lifelong-endeavor/
He is fairly careful about what he eats, performs an intense cross-training routine known as P90X most mornings, and has made close to 40 climbs of Colorado’s “Fourteeners” (14,000-foot peaks)
jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/43705747.html
Again,” close to 40,” wouldn’t you know an exact number?
Colorado Mountain Club Summit Registers?
amk
@jwb: @? Martin:
why do the rwnj’s lack the courage to stick with one name?
Southern Beale
Oh, fuck me. A month before my 40th birthday I ran the Country Music Marathon in 4:40. Certainly not a record pace. Ryan beat me but he was a college student and a guy.
Jesus stop lying about shit that can be checked so easily.
Pinkamena Panic
You can be sure that GOPpers know they’ve lost a fight when they try to spin it as “hurrrr y u libz still talkin bout dis it meanz ur scared herpy derpy hooves”. They tried it when Snowbilly Snooki was exposed as a dimwit, they tried it when Grabby Hands the Pizza Man was exposed as a fool, and now they’re trying it to deflect from Lyin’ Eyes Ryan being caught in yet another lie.
‘Twas e’er thus.
Violet
@Violet: Maybe it originated here in this puke-inducing overly gushy opinion piece on Ryan:
I think the author’s seeing starbursts.
Soonergrunt
@Allen: After being an Infantryman in the Army for three years, and doing PT with running five days a week, I ran a PT test and got a 13:12 for the 2-mile run. That’s 6:36/mi. I spent the morning puking my guts out, and the weekend aching in my back, my legs, and my chest.
jwb
@amk: In the case of BoB, I think it is because he was banned. RC might have been as well, since whenever I write out the full name, my posts disappear into oblivion.
kindness
I don’t see Romney debating Obama. I thought there were some debates scheduled but I can’t see Mitt’s unabashed bullshit standing up to Obama. Romney’s people have to know this. I wonder.
maryQ
@David Koch: Winner!
arguingwithsignposts
@kravenkraaken:
Well, it said he climbed. Didn’t say he reached the summit. I summited Pikes Peak once (after my grandparents drove the car to the gift shop).
jwb
@kindness: I’ve thought this too, but I don’t see how the optics hold up to Romney refusing to debate. If he continues to trail at the time of the debates, he’ll really have no choice.
maryQ
@kindness: I’ll bet Romney finds a way to weasel out. His peeps are probably, as we speak, looking for the Constitutional loophole.
Sad thing is, I bet 40-50 million people vote for him anyway.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Violet: Jesus Christ on a stick. Why can’t these stupid writers work out their sweaty mancrush fantasies in the privacy of their own homes, rather than spewing it all over the printed page?
What ever happened to the humble pr0n DVD or gay-buttsecks on pay-per-view?
Have they no decency?
At long last, have they no decency?
When I open the politics/op-ed section of a newspaper, I do not want it to read like a write-in in Hustler. (except gay – sorry I don’t know any ghey mags as sleazy as hustler)
arguingwithsignposts
@jwb: @kindness: It’s theoretically possible Willard could skip the debates, but only in theory. Nobody ducks the debates in the general campaign. They may be scripted as hell, but that would truly be unprecedented.
maryQ
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m willing to bet he doesn’t do P90X, but maybe Rockin Body, or Brazilian Butt Lift.
Soonergrunt
@kravenkraaken: He doesn’t remember how many 14ers he’s climbed? Those aren’t easy. They take planning and work, and specialized, expensive gear.
I could be wrong, but I think we can call shenanigans on this, like his world record marathon pace.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
what bullshit.
maryQ
@arguingwithsignposts: F@&$ed up sh!t happens when reasonable people refuse to believe that it can happen.
MikeJ
@jwb:
Same thing with UCT.
NewHavenGuy
Betty Himmler Eyes. Not just the lying, the audacity and nakedness of it. (the audacity of mendacity?)
Ryan is a fanatic. Rand and von Mises are to him what Nazi race fantasy was to yeah, that guy. A fundamentalist worshiping the god of The Market. If the poor must perish for the sake of The Market, who are we mere mortals to argue?
The 180 degree nature of his many, many lies scare me. Sociopathic. Not pathological, but not merely expedient: Ryan is a supreme con artist. Good enough to con himself into thinking he didn’t inherit/marry/loot/mooch everything he has ever “earned”. I think he really does think he built that.
If Ted Bundy didn’t have that breakdown but continued his Libertarian, Objectivist ways? He’d have beat Jocko McYalie for the Washington State Senate race last time. Who knows, with his dreamy eyes he might have even won it. The Cillizzas and Lanes would fawn over him.
pragmatism
Violet: so he remembers the details of the 14ers but is off by an hour?
Btw, some crazy people claim to have done 14 of the summits in one day on the sawatch range.
denverpost.com/travel/ci_18050673
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: I think no one skips it because they fear (rightly, I think) that they would likely lose far more from skipping than showing up. But if that calculus ever changed, you’d certainly have candidates skipping. It actually happens quite frequently in state-level races.
Violet
@danah gaz (fka gaz): It really is kind of astounding, isn’t it. The GOP comes across like one giant closet.
I wonder if some mountain climber types will start to question Ryan on his “fourteener” claims after this marathon time debacle. I hope so. I’d like to hear what he has to say. I know people that have climbed quite a few of them, and they’re no small feat. 40 of them, for a guy who doesn’t live in or near Colorado, so must be doing it on his vacations, and who has a job and a family seems like an awful lot.
CW in LA
@arguingwithsignposts: Unprecedented like a candidate refusing to release his tax returns?
Soonergrunt
@kindness: Remember that it’s a winger fantasy that Romney will wipe the floor with Obama in a debate. They really do hold to that idea that Obama wasn’t vetted properly last time, and that’s why he won, and a decent Republican candidate will take him apart in the debates and that will be that.
They also have this fantasy about a Ryan/Biden debate, completely forgetting that there’s a reason that Biden was called “Joey the Knife”.
Rmoney doesn’t have a choice. He’ll have to debate because the story will be another thing that he’s afraid of having the public see.
I think a debate will be a disaster for Rmoney because he just can’t help himself with the lying and prevaricating and the behavior that sets him apart from the rest of the country. He’ll do or say something disrespectful to the President, trying to rattle him and knock him off his game. It won’t go over well.
arguingwithsignposts
@jwb:
Yes. As I said, it would be unprecedented at the presidential level. This is not a “don’t release your taxes” kind of move that would go away. The first one to try it would lose. If they still got 45 percent of the vote, the debates would probably be over. If they lost every state but Minnesota, the debates would be back on the next go around.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
arguingwithsignposts
@CW in LA: The tax return thing is a relatively recent development, from my understanding.
slag
The weird thing for me here is that I don’t just see this issue as a stick with which to beat up on the R&R campaign. I think this is a very real problem with these guys. Ryan, in particular.
It was one thing to read about the lies Ryan told throughout his speech…I just sort of rolled my eyes for obvious reasons. But when I saw The Daily Show clip of him saying them, I started to get a little creeped out.
Hearing that nonsense coming out of that empty-eyed, expressionless face was a little surreal. Ryan didn’t appear nervous or even remotely apprehensive about the lies he was telling–as if he was simply reading a story that someone else had written.
Combining that performance with this tiny little pointless lie, it seems pretty clear that he’s got a problem. He really may be living out the stunted adolescent fairy tale that underlies his approach to public policy.
Catsy
@Honest Observations: Ah, the CLENIS! The last refuge of a sad wingnut with no argument.
Keep on fucking that chicken, Sparky. It’s all you’ve got. Your frantic one-handed one-liners practically reek of desperation and pants-wetting, gibbering fear.
maryQ
@arguingwithsignposts: I’ll bet you’ll see it, and Romney gets 48% anyway. Electoral blow out, though.
Violet
@pragmatism: From that article:
So maybe Ryan just kind of milled around the base of a few of the fourteeners and called it “climbing”.
MikeJ
@Soonergrunt:
They also think Obama is thin skinned and will explode with rage when Romney hammers him. They seem to have never heard of no drama Obama.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: If we ever get an incumbent president up by double digits in mid-September, you might see no debates. That’s the usual scenario for major state-level races not having debates. But there is a lot more at stake in the Presidential race, and someone ducking out of debates makes for easy campaign ads by the other side.
kindness
Well say they do have the debates. The way it’s playing out now Romney will repeat the charges. Romney’s folk see lying as less evil than losing. Well, they’ll get both.
But Romney will lie. Obama will speak well as he does. Romney’s people, Fox and selected Village Elders will speak glowingly of Romney’s night. The rest of the world will be wondering what alternative universe Romney lives in. Won’t matter. The closed loop reinforces itself.
Funny, we’ve wondered that about Republicans for a long time now.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: It started with George Romney, no?
GregB
Paul Ryan is a brilliant policy wonk with a 14 inch penis.
He told me so.
amk
@maryQ: I’ll take that bet. Not over 45% in PV.
jwb
@amk: He’d be lucky to hit 40%. The chicken Romney ads make themselves.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I struck out 37 batters in a game once in high school. And I have blue eyes!
jwb
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Your team didn’t have many hitters, did it?
The Republic of Stupidity
@maryQ:
And probably a good 20-25 million of them would vote for Jerry Sandusky as long as it meant voting against Obama…
Violet
@jwb: If Romney decides to bail on the debates, all Obama has to do is show up and there will be an empty podium (chair) for Romney. The late night comedy jokes and sketches will write themselves.
No way the networks who won the debates (not all of them got one) will not air them if someone bails. They’d rather have Obama and Romney’s empty chair. People would tune in for the novelty of how it would be handled. Ratings would be high. The debate would happen without Romney.
The only way he could get out of it is a family emergency (and it would have to be huge–Ann in critical condition in the hospital or something) or he himself being quite ill.
arguingwithsignposts
@jwb: that was what i understood. he released 12 years (?) worth.
pragmatism
@Violet: I, for one, do not welcome our post truth overlords. I did some easy 14ers like arguingwithsignposts pointed out with pikes peak i also did a couple of challenging ones You can drive up most of the way on a few of them like mt Evans. But I wouldn’t claim one I didn’t summit.
jwb
Again, I can see a circumstance that the debates might not be held, but it won’t be this year, and the challenger would never be is a position to refuse the debate. Yes, the chicken Romney ads really do write themselves.
Ash Can
@Soonergrunt: One thing that I wonder about as I sit here after a couple of margaritas and a Maredsous Tripel chaser: When Obama was debating McCain, he was debating a Senate colleague. They’d had some falling-outs, heaven knows, but they were on similar footing career-wise and I think both of them took this into consideration, and they were accordingly respectful and civil. This time around, these guys have — what? Harvard law degrees in common? Mitt the run-of-the-mill legacy student vs. Barack the phee-nom Law Review editor? Head for the hills, Mitty, and you’d better wear kevlar shorts if you don’t want to be picking buckshot out of your ass until Easter.
slag
@kindness:
I don’t know. It’s easy to underestimate the challenge of debating someone who has absolutely no regard for the truth. You have to be prepared for anything, and anything is a difficult thing to prepare for. Remember when Joe Barton asked that ridiculous question of Steven Chu? I’m not sure the average viewer would have known what to do with that exchange.
Soonergrunt
@Violet: Hey, I once drove the Mount Evans road in Colorado, to near the top of Mount Evans. So I guess that I’ve climbed Evans, Rogers Peak, and Mount Warren by that standard.
Yay, me!
Bill E Pilgrim
Romney and Ryan… yeeah, that’s the ticket.
Sorry couldn’t resist. Someone’s done that one already I hope.
Edit: Actually come to think of it isn’t Jon Lovitz a sort of Canadian Republican Obama hater as of late?
SatanicPanic
Romney won’t duck the debate. He thinks he can win. Especially after beating on all those jabronies in the Republican primaries.
jwb
@slag: Yes, but Romney’s lies are not really unpredictable and he is not crazy or undisciplined like Palin, who really might have said anything, so I don’t think the debate preparation will be that difficult. It’s more figuring out the correct rhetorical emphasis to give your kill shots so they register maximally with the audience.
Soonergrunt
@Violet:
I smell an MS relapse coming on.
Frankensteinbeck
If Romney ducks the debates, his poll numbers will plummet. The GOP base are natural bullies, and they don’t like their leaders to show fear. Rand Paul damn near lost Kentucky – KENTUCKY – when Conway humiliated him in the fist debate and Rand canceled the next. He had to reschedule it because his base didn’t give a damn who won the debate, but they were abandoning him for being too chicken to show up to one.
amk
@Soonergrunt: cue new wingnut conspiracy theories that obummer was behind that MS relapse somehow. limpaugh will blow a gasket.
maryQ
@amk: Ok. Anyhow, 20 years from now, I’ll swear Thai I’d said only 42%
Steeplejack
@maryQ:
It’ll turn out that he does part of a Zumba routine.
Violet
@Soonergrunt: MS relapse won’t work, since MS is a chronic condition. And if he bails because of Ann’s MS, everyone will wonder when it’s going to happen again, will it keep happening, etc. It would have to be Ann having a stroke and being in the ICU or Ann getting hit by a car or something unusual and unrelated to her MS.
slag
@jwb: I don’t know. That welfare thing came pretty much out of nowhere. I suspect that Mitt’s just getting started re-etching his sketch.
pragmatism
Tbogg on the twitter twatter: When Paul Ryan set the world record for the mile in 1966 he did it under the name Jim Ryun because he hadn’t been born yet #lyinRyan
Violet
About Romney and the debates. Read either at Fallows or someone Sully linked to that Romney is an usual debater in that he’s pretty good when he’s on message. He speaks well and remembers stuff and is generally pretty good. However, if he gets thrown off he really gets thrown off and he’ll pop out with something terrible, like the $10,000 bet with Perry. Apparently this type of person is very difficult to coach because it’s hard to prepare them for being caught off guard. That sort of thing isn’t as easy to train as, say, someone who just generally sucks at debating.
The goal for Obama will be to throw Mitt off his game. If he can do that, Mitt will stumble and appear uncomfortable at best, and at worst commit a memorable gaffe.
Anne Laurie
@amk:
To be fair, he’s probably been banned under some of the previous ones. And not just at this generally anti-banhammer blog, either.
That’s why I assume he’s getting paid for this — finding new ISPs to sockpuppet from is sufficiently tedious/expensive it would be easier to just move on to the next blog (like BoB going to the Washington Monthly) unless one was doing it for a living.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
Interview excerpt:
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University.
PR: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.
_____________________
So he lied through his teeth. You don’t fuck your times up like that TWICE, and then when the interviewer says “Holy Smokes!” respond with “I was fast!” if it was just an honest error. If he “mis-remembered”, in the very least, he’d have back-pedaled when the interviewer said “Holy smokes!”, if not sooner.
FFS, can there really be any doubt that this asshole wasn’t just flat out lying?
puhleeze.
Violet
@danah gaz (fka gaz): He totally liked through his teeth. I bet he had no idea that runners are so obsessive about their times. He figured he’d go with an Olympic time plus a bit to make himself look really fast. He just pulled that number out of thin air, figuring no one would check up on it. Liar.
Now I hope someone follows up on the “climbing 40 fourteeners” claim. Let’s see those Summit Registers.
kravenkraaken
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Ryan’s brother Tobin Ryan Qualified for and ran the Boston Marathon in 2011. Finish time 3:34:06 at age 46.
Hometown newspaper coverage before the race. Boston baby: Ryan set for Beantown marathon
Lots of details about his running history, training and qualifying.
Hard to believe that there was never any discussion between the brothers about Paul Ryan’s marathon experience. Hard to believe that Paul never heard how Tobin did, and had no reference to what a good time was, or the difference between “two hour and fifty-something” and 4:01.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: 40? That’s ridiculous. There are 67 or so in the continental USA. I’m also guessing that only maybe a fifth at the most are walk-ups, so is he a mountain climber too? Or did he just pick 10 relatively easy ones and do them 4 times each?
Violet
@SatanicPanic: Go back upthread to my post here Violet and read the excerpt I posted from some starbursts-y opinion column where the author claims Ryan has climbed 40 in Colorado. I don’t know more than that.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
Despite LGM dumping it’s bad trolls on us, I love them.
I think the reason is most succinctly illustrated by the fact that LGM is the only match on google when you search for “erudite poop joke” (including the quotes)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@kravenkraaken: /facepalm
I hope his brother beats his ass over this (as brothers are wont to do)
Villago Delenda Est
@Soonergrunt:
The best I ever did on the 2 mile run was 14:10. Of course, I wasn’t an infantryman, this is when I was a Signal Platoon leader. Most of my PT tests were more in the 15-16 minute range.
Oh, when I was at 9th DIVARTY HQ, our carrrazy XO insisted that the officers do the 10 mile road march to infantry battalion standards. We managed to do it, and I tried really hard to stay off my feet for three days.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: I’m just kind of thinking aloud, not really expecting you to have answers to all the questions this dubious claim raises ;)
kravenkraaken
The earliest report of Paul Ryan’s mountaineering exploits in Colorado that I have found is a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story from April 26, 2009.
Ryan draws inspiration from family, mentors
The source of this quote
“(My father) died of a heart attack at 55, my grandfather died of a heart attack at 57, my great-grandfather died of heart attack at 59, so I’m into the health thing,” says Ryan. He is fairly careful about what he eats, performs an intense cross-training routine known as P90X most mornings, and has made close to 40 climbs of Colorado’s “Fourteeners” (14,000-foot peaks).
This was back before his Ayn Rand Etch-A-Sketch attempt so there is this:
In a more concrete way, Ryan’s politics were shaped by writers and thinkers such as Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, author of “The Road to Serfdom,” and like-minded political mentors who celebrated capitalism, free markets and individual initiative.
An economics major at Miami of Ohio, Ryan says his dream was to go to the University of Chicago, where Milton Friedman had taught, and become an economist.
But “I just kept getting really interesting jobs.”
Also this must have been a special moment, how lucky Tobin remembered to tell the reporter.
Ryan’s brother Tobin says that on one of these trips, as the family hiked through the snow toward a herd of sheep in a mountain meadow near Snowmass peak, 6-year-old Paul took in the scenery and spontaneously burst out singing, “America the Beautiful.”
“We’re all just looking at each other smiling at this kid capturing this moment. . . . I think there was something in his genetic makeup,” says Tobin, who lives close by his brother, one of nine households in the extended Ryan family that reside within a few blocks of the house where Paul and Tobin grew up.
American exceptionalism at it’s best.
Violet
@SatanicPanic: Oh, I know. I was just linking to the opinion piece because it was so far upthread. And also for it’s starbursts-y glory. If you’ve got a steady stomach, that is.
@kravenkraaken: That article isn’t clear as to whether it’s one peak 40 times or 40 different peaks. He could pick the easiest one and do it every time he visits, or whatever. Maybe one you can drive up or most of the way up?
Jamie
Paul Ryan once killed a bear with his tonsils. #Ryanfacts
Paul Ryan once cooked chili on his abdomen. #Ryanfacts
Paul Ryan can roll a joint with his elbows, but doesn’t, ’cause that would be immoral. #Ryanfacts
MikeJ
@Violet:
You can certainly drive to the top of Pikes Peak. Or take the funicular. Sadly they don’t require you to sing in Italian.
My father once drove a racecar up it, back in the days before it was paved. He tells of getting pulled over doing some speed far in excess of the limit in Manitou Springs on the way to the mountain, while driving what was very obviously a race car and not a street car. Of course he doesn’t claim that he drove up 40 mountains, or ran up them in less than 3 hours.
kravenkraaken
@Violet: Perhaps Nicholas Thompson at the New Yorker needs some more material. He might get at least a post or two out of this 14,000 foot mountains claim. Throw in the “professional” skiing and it might require boots on the ground in Snowmass. No comment after the marathon story probably won’t be possible.
The lack of clarity may be a feature not a bug. He certainly could have gotten a correction if he wasn’t happy with it.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: There is a road to the top of Pike’s Peak
Violet
@Jamie: Is Ryan going to beat up Chuck Norris?
@kravenkraaken: Sounds like a good idea. Wonder if he’s working on Labor Day weekend?
kravenkraaken
@Violet: @MikeJ: If he isn’t it might be too late. The first inning didn’t last much longer that a couple of Paul Ryan Marathons.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
This. Romney maybe could have ducked the debates if it weren’t for Clint’s senior improvisation, but now that that’s part of the popular imagination, it would be disastrous for Mitt to create any situation with an empty chair that his ass was supposed to be in.
kravenkraaken
@Mnemosyne: 2008 empty chair. Letterman mocks McCain for several minutes during show
El Cid
Phew. Just got done with 8 consecutive marathons while reading all these comments. Took about 20 minutes, rounding off.
Yet I still feel energized enough to make up 4 new federal budgets using my special new number system, and if I have time visit some rape crisis centers to tell these sluts to shut up and have the god-damn babies.
Calouste
@kravenkraaken:
Got bad news for Paul Ryan: he is very likely to also get a heart attack in his late 50s, doesn’t matter how fit he is.
JoyceH
You know what? Now I’m starting to doubt the P90X legend. The news media reports over and over that Ryan is this buff, hardened workout junkie who does P90X almost every day – based on what? Have any of them ever SEEN him do it?
I wish a news type would act all starry-eyed and ask permission to humbly watch Ryan at his workout. I’d be willing to bet that appointment would be stalled and rescheduled and delayed and stalled again – and somehow the witnessed workout would just never happen.
Jamey
@GregB: I recall someone here saying something about Ryan milling about the base of fourteeners, so there may be some truth to this one…
Jamey
I believe that this is the argument that renders obsolete all other comments on Ryan’s marathon time.
chopper
@B:
at this point i’m not actually sure he even has a brother.
Snarla
I’m still pissed that anyone ever believed Palin could field-dress a moose.
Applejinx
@Mnemosyne: Whoa.
All the more convinced that Clint shivved them. And now I’ve heard him, in the Stewart clip. I’d like to hear Clint speak normally- hear how different he is from the shambling wreck quavering at the chair. When he faced the crowd initially his head was high and he did NOT seem like he was gonna be quavering at chairs…
As for Ryan, supposing every goddamn thing he’s ever said or done was a complete shuck? He’s a man of his time- the completely hypothetical Republican. Seems like he made it all up? Every single thing. That dude’s pathological, it’s creepy.
chopper
@Jamie:
it seems ryan is really pushing for the Brasky voters.
paul ryan was an 8-foot-tall mountain of a man who could palm a medicine ball!
Soonergrunt
@SatanicPanic: 53 of those are in Colorado. WIKI
There’s a website called 14ers.com that is Colorado mountain climbers and hikers. I don’t know if anyone there has brought this subject up or not, and I don’t feel like disrupting their community.
Soonergrunt
@Villago Delenda Est: A 12-mile road march was something we did on a monthly basis, usually around Payday Activities, and sometimes after a battalion 6-mile run in the morning.
Yes, I was a stud when I was younger. Now I wake up in the mornings and think “I used to do xxx. Crazy.”
salsify
I, a mere female, ran my only marathon, the Pittsburgh marathon, at the age of 39 in 4:13, and that race has some significant hills. If Ryan could only do a 4:01 in his twenties, on the flat Grandma’s marathon, his vaunted physical prowess is crap.
Soonergrunt
One of the better ones:
David Waldman @KagroX
Pokeyblow
@kc: Hilarious that the GOP genius wonk doesn’t know the difference between 3 and 4, and doesn’t know how to operate a calendar.
Pokeyblow
@kc: Hilarious that the GOP genius wonk doesn’t know the difference between 3 and 4, and doesn’t know how to operate a calendar.
RSA
@Violet:
Wow. But I also remember that twelve years ago we elected the best brush-cutting “Bike Guy” President the world had ever seen. That didn’t work out too well.
SFAW
Perhaps Ryan had a voucher to help defray the time-cost associated with running a marathon? At that age, he probably would have gotten more than an hour, thus bringing his time down under 3 hours.
Of course, if he were 55, the voucher would only reduce the time-cost by about 3 minutes.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Ash Can: Oh, I don’t think Obama’s a buckshot kinda guy. I think he’ll just eat Romney’s lunch, and Mormons practice fasting regularly, so he’ll be used to it…
Ruckus
@Mike E:
I drove to the top of the highest paved road in the US, in CO once, does that make me VP material?
ellennelle
anyone else here remember when palin faked that race last year in storm lake iowa?
must be trending as a republican veep requisite.
kuvasz
Did he mention his wife, Morgan Fairchild? That’s the ticket!
Tonal Crow
Q: Why do Republicans lie so much?
A: Because they couldn’t win election as a mosquito-abater in Houston if they told us what they really want to do.
—
Romney: Like Palin, but less attractive and more dishonest.
grandpa john
@Soonergrunt: Heh, one of the reasons I was in the navy, no hikes, 3 hot meals a day at a table, and sleeping in a bunk with a roof over my head.
Starlit
@poco: There’s an essential motivator missing vis-a-vis meming the truth. Lies can only live by being repeated; the facts exist to be discovered.
So the motivation of a liar to publish, promote, and present is ongoing: it’s the only way a lie can live.
valency
If Romney was Al Gore, this story would be used as fodder for a narrative about him being a pathological liar and exaggerator. But because it’s a Republican, it’s an amusing “mistake” and will get no play whatsoever.
And BTW, once again, since people need reminding, Al Gore said:
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Althogh it was slightly inartful phrasing, it was true: he was a major political sponsor of NSFnet and the initiative to gateway other networks to it, which became the modern Internet; without it, ARPANET would have remained a research network.
Only a Democratic politician can get caught out by the media in a lie that is actually true.
T
@Violet: I questioned it immediately. And I’m a midwesterner who climbed my 40th different 14er (43 total) this morning. It’s involved planning, a week or more in Colorado most of the last ten years, and probably 38 climbing days of 7-18 hours each (probably 10 hour average). Add in travel time, time driving the length of Colorado probably 8-10 times, time to acclimatize. Also factor in that by decent planning, getting up at 3 am for most climbs I’ve avoided most weather (thunderstorms on the peaks after noon are almost the norm) I’ve been successful on my first attempt on each of them. (Should say I’ve been very lucky, too). Factor in failed summit bids and you might have to add several days to the total I quoted. It’s a time-consuming habit that for me is only possible because I’m self-employed, and is often a strain on my family.
T
@Soonergrunt: It’s been brought up a few times. Unforntunately, too many political arguments were pushing climbing subjects off the main forum page thatnow any thread that mentions politics gets sent to the “off route” part of the forum where no one sees it unless they know where to look. Either 14ers.com or the Colorado Mountain Club would be naturals to play the role that Runner’s World did. But 14ers.com will not be playing. The CMC keeps all the summit registers that people sign. These days so many people are climbing that it’s hard to keep the registers in working order. They might fill up in a week, the tubes they are in can leak or break in the harsh environment. Unless it’s a noteworthy peak a lot of us won’t even look for a register to sign. But 10-15 years ago, I think most people would sign them. If he claimed 40 and he never signed a register and never had someone take his picture on a summit, that would not be typical 14er behavior–especially if he traveled a thousand miles to get there.