I realize that Ryan is ballot box poison for Republicans, but mostly this just makes me mad:
ABC News actually compared Ryan with Kevin Kline’s character from the 1993 movie Dave—an endearingly naïve Everyman who accidentally finds himself president and does battle with cynical forces to scrub the federal budget of waste. After showing a clip from the film, reporter Jonathan Karl cut to footage of himself in Ryan’s office attempting to re-create the scene. Karl opens a budget tome to a random page and looks on in awe as Ryan explains the dense prose and the savings to be had.
[….]Seeming genuine is something Ryan does extraordinarily well. And here is where something deeper is at play, more than Ryan’s charm and winning personality, something that gets at the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary Washington. The Ryan brand is rooted in his ostentatious wonkery. Because, unlike the Bushes and the Palins, he grounds his position in facts and figures, he seems like an encouraging candidate to strike a bargain. But the thing to keep in mind about Ryan is that he was trained in the world of Washington Republican think tanks. These were created out of a belief that mainstream economists were hopelessly biased to the left, and crafted an alternative intellectual ecosystem in which conservative beliefs—the planet is not getting warmer, the economy is not growing more unequal—can flourish, undisturbed by skepticism. Ryan is intimately versed in the blend of fact, pseudo-fact, and pure imagination inhabiting this realm.
Ryan’s adoring fans inside the beltway will make sure Americans never find out that Ryan is a nut. But they won’t be able to keep people from finding out that he would end Social Security and Medicare, and that’s the important thing. Voters don’t know c-razy, but they know c-at food.
Valdivia
Crystal Gayle? :)
ETA: that Chait piece was pretty good. I only objected to the premise that he is so branded as this hero that it is dangerous for the democrats to take him on. I say go for the jugular!
Linda
Did this guy sell his soul to the devil for this kind of press, or what? Even Ezra Klein, who is a real serious reporter, as opposed to a Village Serious Person, was snookered for quite some time. People ought to take a seminar to learn how to be that well liked.
chopper
one of the deleted scenes in Dave apparently had Kevin Kline choking an old pensioner to death.
srv
Somebody get this man a leather jacket!
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Except, you know, Dave also forced budget reshuffling to save centers for the poor and his moral compass lead him to advocate a radical jobs bill that the late Robert Novak and the McLaughlin group excoriated him for, what with the rampant communism behind the idea.
Way to miss the mark again you goddamned twits.
Yutsano
This floofing is going to make me ill. Talk up the guy all you want Village scum, his ideas are still based in trickery and free market uber alles thinking.
khead
I’d rather listen to Crystal Gayle than read anything about Mr. Ryan. Just sayin.
If you can somehow tie Juice Newton into a Mr. Ryan post, that would be fine too. I mean, same time period with the title reference. So, what the hell?
Get fuckin’ crackin’!
BGinCHI
How fucking far can you go in DC by just being likeable?
It’s like a high school but with nuclear weapons.
slag
@Linda: I don’t think that’s necessarily a fair assessment. From what I read, Klein was trying to honestly engage before he reasonably dismissed. I don’t remember him spouting any fanboi nonsense about noodling or working out. Engaging on a policy level–even when the policy is patently absurd–is vastly superior to whatever this crap is.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Valdivia:
Tell me no secrets, tell me some lies.
Walker
I could do that too if I was talking to a functionally illiterate reporter. How on Earth could they tell if I was making stuff up? I just have sound like I know something.
Ben Franklin
The Jimmy Stewart comment was what, “Mr Smith goes to Washington”?
Judith Miller redux…….
Valdivia
@khead:
Queen of Hearts! Love that.
And totally apt: ‘the joker ain’t the only fool who’ll do everything for you’ That’s the Village and Ryan right there.
Mnemosyne
So I’m guessing that no one at ABC News ever bothered to actually watch Dave since the whole point of the movie is that Dave takes over for a heartless Republican and implements a liberal/populist wish list.
khead
@Valdivia:
I’m thinking more along the lines of “Break it to me Gently“.
Hunter Gathers
Doesn’t matter. He’ll never be anything more than a Bobblehead. He’ll never win a state-wide or national election. Sure, he’s going to be a permanent fixture on the Sunday shows (that nobody watches) and his yearly unveiling of whatever new scheme he has fuck over the poor will cause the Press to soil their undies, but he’ll never be more than that.
He’s going to be pain in the ass for the next 30+ years, but unless the GOP decides to stop bashing brown people (which won’t ever fucking happen), all of the Burkean Modesty on the planet isn’t going to win you a national election. Even if David Brooks wants to fuck you.
jl
I think DougJ shuold sit down and take a deep breath.
These puff pieces are disconcerting because they show how corrupt and dangerous our national failed media experiment has become. And the childishness of this wanna be Tiger Beat coverage warns of vasty deep chasms of stupid over which the nation must tread.
on other hand, the NYT paper of record puff piece clearly stated that the Ryan/GOP plan would privatize Medicare, and Ryan has not given any specifics on what spending he will cut or what loopholes he will close to pay for his tax cuts.
So, the New York mag can print what it wants. The NYT has been bold enough to put four or five lines of important information in their article.
Omnes Omnibus
It bothers me that he would put WI in play if he were on the GOP ticket. Fuckimg embarrassment.
Valdivia
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity:
Touche.
Give me no reasons, give me alibis.
@khead:
ah yes! even better.
Quaker in a Basement
Does Ryan have a tire swing?
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: You may have to move down to IL where all the jobs are. Just fill your car with New Glarus and get down here.
I can help you unpack the beer.
David Hunt
Now that would make for some interesting football games…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jonathon Karl was on an egregious CNN attempt to make a Gen-X version of Capital Gang back in the 90s. He came across as a smarmy, sneering, Clinton-hating frat boy
Face
OT:
In 3….2….1…(say it with me!)….aktivizt jujez! Ruling from the bench! Sandpaper legalilism!
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Unpack = drink in this construct?
Dork
@Face: From your link:
Um, yeah. That is, until the SCOTUS rules the other way next year. All legal foundations are fungible.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
well, to be practical for a second, is pushing ryan on raw money as the veep he needs, really a bad thing?
all this seems like to me, is the media putting in their request to the veepstakes. does the media actually like ryan, or do they perceive him as the best chance for a horse race?
unless ryan has hidden depth, i am pretty sure the media that wants him because they know they can slice him up, if they so choose.
so there is that.
i think ryan is fulll-on committed to political losers on issues the gop would rather not focus on, this campaign.
jl
OT, but I guess it’s time for a rest from racist dog whistles, and GOP has decided that the GOP War on Women fuss has quieted down sufficiently, so why not run out the old sexism routine for a while?
Rush Limbaugh: ‘All Hillary Is Is A Secretary’
wonkette.com/471331/rush-limbaugh-all-hillary-is-is-a-secretary#more-471331
Rush also decided to trot out the shamed humiliated women, victim of the horrible Big Dawg.
And, as I noted recently, Chealsea Clinton is on the outs with the Village because she won’t use her nepotism gig to do teary tell alls about Monicagate. Uppity kid, I guess she wants to try to be a ‘serious reporter’ or something. Anyway, interesting coincidence.
They are throwing everything up against the wall on everyone and seeing what sticks. That is what we need to point out, not the random buttons they decide to push each week to see how many reactionary voter knee jerks result.
Valdivia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
ie wingnut welfare?
rikyrah
he is NOT a ‘ serious’ guy.
he’s a lying crackpot with crackpot phony numbers.
Yutsano
@rikyrah: But he has dreamy eyes. It’s true, I heard Bobo going on and on about them as he was scribbling on his Pee Chee at the Applebee’s salad bar.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: I plead one of those amendments. I think it was the 5th one.
Southern Beale
That picture of Ryan accompanying the article is what makes me mad. Too tan and robust.
I’ve never seen a photo of Ryan that looks anything different from a vampire overdue for his feeding.
Valdivia
Am I remembering wrong that Ryan was one of the people Obama smacked down but good both at the Republican retreat and the Health Care roundtable, for which the media excoriated him for being ‘rude’.
Dee Loralei
very O/T. But I’m still all pissed off at Romney with respect to his Jimmy Carter quip today. BTW, you need to watch the President’s comments on it, his half-smirk throughout is priceless.
Look asshole MittBot I know you were trying to be funny and deflect this thing and prolly also trying to make Obama seem like a wimp like Carter has been made out to be over the years. But listen here you smarmy mendacious asswipe. Carter fucking made that call! 8 American servicemen died in the desert! Now, it just seems like you are pissing on their sacrifice by trying to be funny! Fucking STOP IT! Now!
OK I’m done, sorry for my rant, but it’s been bugging me for hours.
gex
The GOP. They never stop acting like a bunch of closet cases. I assume many of them aren’t, but it is so hard to tell.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Valdivia:
Agreed. Ryan has clearly been Anointed by… well, someone.
His Presidential aspirations absolutely must be strangled in the cradle.
Teddy's Person
That he pulls out of his butt. hahahaha
If they’re going to go all junior high then so am I.
Chris
I remember when Palin was being trumpeted as “unlike Bush,” just a couple years ago, and when Bush was being trumpeted as “unlike” the shit-show that the Republican brand had become in the 1990s thanks to Gingrich and the rest.
The “new kind of conservative” comes out every few years like clockwork, a fresh promise that this time, it won’t be like all those other times, the conservative will actually be a true conservative and everything will finally fall into place.
schrodinger's cat
When did the Villagers start caring about facts and figures?
grandpa john
@Dee Loralei: He can’t help it.
Tone deaf assholes are going to be ton e deaf assholes. Its in their genes
Craig
This is my favorite reference yet.
(Who sold us out for chicken change? It’s not really Ryan, it’s more the Democrats who refuse to stand up to this little prick.)
foggy follansbye
@Dee Loralei: “Even John Harbaugh would have told Flacco to go for it on fourth and six.”
PurpleGirl
@Yutsano: Ryan looks like Eddie Munster. He’s creepy.
jl
@Chris:
‘ The “new kind of conservative” comes out every few years like clockwork, ‘
The ‘ old kind of conservative ‘, like Lincoln, TR and Eisenhower (Edit: and George Romney) are all communists now, and that model line is shut down.
Takes awhile to get the kinks out of new product, though 30 plus years is pushing that excuse, in my Bolshevik opinion.
Forum Transmitted Disease
As impressive as Prescott Bush designing a computer system that would tabulate where all the Jews were and let Hitler know exactly how many would have to die.
khead
For the record, I have dreamy eyes too (hazel).
But I’m not fucking crazy. Too bad apparently.
jl
@Dee Loralei: Didn’t know what you were talking about but just heard Romney said ‘Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order’.
I think it is clear that our national corporate failed media experiment is fluffing for the GOP (because they want them to win, or because their ad marketers know how to read the polls and tell them they better start ginning up the horse race?)
They tried to do the same thing with McCain, but McCain/Palin got so goofy, there were weeks where the media just threw up its hands, and said more or less ‘look, you people have to give us something to work with here, you know?”
Might be the same this time.
Anyway, Mitt committed such a nasty mean spirited and unfair comment that I do not think will play well with public.
butler
I think I might retch:
So they aren’t even hiding the facts, they just don’t fucking care. Facts vs “nice guy” and they pick “nice”. Its like saying one team should win because they have nicer uniforms.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Chris: The differences between the heavy metal scene and conservatism are minimal at best (mainly in the uniform worn in public, plus metalheads are usually minimally smarter) while the similarities are becoming truly terrifying.
butler
@Dee Loralei: Second your whole rant. Bugged the hell out of me too.
Tonal Crow
Your Politifact “Liar of the Year” award is on its way via Fed-Ex early-morning delivery. I understand that this year’s award is a life-size bust of David Brooks preening himself for a life-size bust of Paul Ryan, with inscription by Grover Norquist. Please post photos!
I hope so.
Tonal Crow
@Chris:
Because conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Xecky Gilchrist
ABC News actually compared Ryan with Kevin Kline’s character from the 1993 movie Dave
I was thinking more like Kline’s character from A Fish Called Wanda.
Citizen Alan
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Is that for real? I mean, I know Prescott had Nazi ties and was a fascist sympathizer. I just didn’t know he provided computers for Hitler. Or for that matter, that Hitler had computers.
Nutella
All this fluffing of the zombie-eyed granny starver inspired me to throw some $$ to his opponent in WI-01.
Valdivia
Since I was out all day and haven’t caught up with all the threads I don’t know if this was linked already. But man is this utterly delicious and satisfying!
Stephen King telling Christie and Romney where to stuff it.
metricpenny
A post with a Crystal Gayle beginning and a James Brown finish. Kind of a reverse Michael Jackson.
Paul Ryan? Sounds like he’s been selected as the republican pin-up of the moment.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Citizen Alan: I’m guessing this is a fictitious example – I sure hope so.
James Gary
I see what you did there. Linger on.
Wilson Heath
Typo in the quote. “Ostentatious wankery.”
Frankensteinbeck
@butler:
They don’t see it as a problem. I am more swayed by the Cult Of Savvy explanation for modern journalism every day. Only naive fools and zealots think policies matter. Savvy reporters know it’s all about the horse race. Yes, they’ve convinced themselves that their worst failure is their greatest strength.
No wonder they like Republicans.
Villago Delenda Est
Of which this fucking fluff-piece is a prime example.
FlipYrWhig
Any Republican who is not openly an idiot or a Bible-thumper will be snuggled to the bosom of the DC media. McCain did it with dirty jokes and war stories. Ryan apparently does it with big blue eyes and a show of earnestness. It’s grotesque how low that bar is.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@butler:
__
You know who else had nicer uniforms…
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Well. Only for Republicans.
Villago Delenda Est
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
You know, that was my thought exactly.
They sure did have swell uniforms as they slaughtered millions of innocents.
elm
@Xecky Gilchrist: It conflates two pieces of U.S. corporate malfeasance.
Prescott Bush was involved in companies that financed Nazi Germany. IBM sold computers to the Nazis which they used to identify people to imprison and kill, the Nazis also used IBM computers to manage concentration camps.
I don’t think there’s any interaction between Bush and IBM.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: Oh, totally. You’d think that, say, John Kerry, guitar-playing Vietnam hero turned antiwar activist, equipped with a strong jaw and a well-kept head of hair, would be a candidate for cool status, but he was treated as a laughingstock.
befuggled
@Xecky Gilchrist: I think this is what he was referring to. I did not think Prescott Bush was involved with this, but I haven’t read the book.
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
I wouldn’t. War heroes can’t be anti-war. That does not compute in the Village. War heroes wear flight suits that accentuate their codpieces while standing on the deck of an air craft carrier to give a victory speech. MANLY men, not someone known to sympathize with the actual 60s Hippies.
Steve in DC
That’s because Kerry has the personality of a turnip and put people to sleep whenever he talked.
Xecky Gilchrist
@elm: @befuggled: Damn, I had no idea about the computer part. Whatever Bush’s involvement or non- with IBM, they both did some serious nastiness.
@FlipYrWhig: Ryan apparently does it with big blue eyes and a show of earnestness.
Which is why the worshiping of him reminds me so much of the Oliver North lovefest from the old days. Puke.
Martin
@Steve in DC: Kerry came off as too scripted to me – just like Mitt. It’s hard to put personality in others people’s words – look at how few actors can really pull it off.
I’ve always thought that the teleprompter attack against Obama was designed to force that label on him, where it wasn’t deserved. If Obama’s speeches are scripted, they at least seem scripted by him, not someone else. I think the debates are going to be pretty interesting.
danielx
And evidently undisturbed by facts or reality, either.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@FlipYrWhig:
__
I’m going to be disappointed if we make it all the way this Village-Ryan puppy love phase without DougJ working in at least one lyrical reference to Bullets and Blue Eyes.
sophronia
Gee, remember how devoted the media idiots were to wonkiness and facts and figures back when Al Gore was using them to point out that George W. Bush was a half-wit with no idea what he was talking about?
It’s always, always OK if you’re a Republican. No matter what.
FlipYrWhig
@Steve in DC: I don’t see Paul Ryan as a big ball of excitement himself. John McCain has a thin voice and has trouble keeping the attention of a room. Kerry is not the world’s most charismatic figure, but many people in his same general class have been much better regarded by the punditocracy.
@Xecky Gilchrist: Interesting case, North. I do think the media likes men in uniform (largely because of post-Vietnam “survivor’s guilt”).
But I still don’t quite get the Ryan love. We’ve seen other cases of Handsome Generic Republican, like the boomlet for John Thune. Reporters must feel like they come away from talking to Ryan as though they have learned something, rather than feeling like they just spent some time with their cool uncle who rides a motorcycle and lets them have a sip of beer (a/k/a the McCain experience).
FlipYrWhig
@sophronia: Good parallel. With Gore, the first-class media would complain that there were too many numbers and it was all so boring and they couldn’t make sense of it. So Ryan must do something else that caresses their innumerate erogenous zones.
jl
@FlipYrWhig:
” Reporters must feel like they come away from talking to Ryan as though they have learned something,”
Maybe they’ve learned to convince themselves that is really for the best for everyone if tax rates are cut even lower and they can keep all their money. Many of the celebrity corporate national affairs press are filthy rich, and I think most of the rest of them are among the tragically not quite rich enough class. A few paupers might be close enough to 250K to feel like class warfare is getting way too close to them before they get up those last few critical rungs of career ladder.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@FlipYrWhig:
__
I think it is another case of Newt Gingrich Syndrome. Ryan is a stupid/ignorant (or at least highly innumerate) reporter’s idea of what a high powered intellectual sounds like, at least if they are predisposed to like him on ideological grounds. A lot of the fluffing we are hearing re: Ryan today sounds like a recycled version of circa 1994 Gingrich fluffing.
jl
And they have learned that all that nasty Ayn Rand nonsense they might have to explain to good Christian folk does not exist because Ryan reported to them that the issue does not exist.
And they have also learned that the Conference of Bishops can be safely ignored whenever they say anything inconvenient for rich people because Ryan told them so.
So, you see, knowledge brings peace of mind, if only one is willing to learn.
Edit: BTW, why can’t you learn, buddy?
/snark
Tonal Crow
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Aw c’mon, we should go direct to The Who, do not pass Go, do not collect $200:
Tonal Crow
@FlipYrWhig:
He does the same thing McMegan does: spout about using “hard-nosed” and “quantitative” analysis, while actually using Republican Math. It’s the sizzle (making the media feel savvy) without the steak (the hard work of *becoming* savvy), which is exactly the kind of thing our media love.
Republicans: “Oh, preciousss! My preciousss!” 24/7/365.
Moonbatting Average
Good God man, that’s beautiful.
Skerry
@jl:
Thing is that Jimmy Carter, a decorated Navy officer, did make the hard call about rescuing the Iranian hostages. The mission failed, but the call to execute was made by Carter.
Mitt is clueless.
jl
@Skerry: Exactly. That is the problem with using Carter in a cheap political shot like that.
liberal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Exactly. He’s a pseudointellectual, and journalists of rather low general intelligence fall for his shtick.
El Cid
Paul Ryan has serious, legitimate, quantitative figures showing that the Moon landings were all faked. Democrats mock such a significant leader at their peril.
mclaren
The claim that Paul Ryan “grounds his case in facts and figures” is a flat-out lie. The facts and figures systematically disprove Ryan’s claims.
What Paul Ryan actually does is to cite a bunch of facts and figures and then claim they prove X, when they actually prove the opposite of X.
It’s an old Nixon trick. He’s just lying. Period.
Ruckus
Conservatives aren’t throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks, they are the monkeys in the zoo throwing shit at the paying customers and hoping the customers think it’s funny to watch shit throwing monkeys.
burnspbesq
I didn’t make it past the first paragraph of Chait’s piece before my head ‘sploded.
Seriously, Gingrich actually said this: “Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.”
Think about that for a second. No, really wrap your head around it. Marvel at it. Does it not make your head ‘splode?