Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

We still have time to mess this up!

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

T R E 4 5 O N

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

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300

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Kthug:

So that’s the constituency Romney is targeting: not a large segment of the electorate, but a few hundred at most editors, reporters, programmers, and pundits. His hope is that Ryan’s unjustified reputation for honest wonkery will transfer to the ticket as a whole.

I think there’s more to it, I think Romney does want to stir the wingers’ passion too. But he certainly wants ass clowns like Will Saletan and Chuck Lane to jizz their pants about Ol’ Blue Eyes, that’s part of the strategy.

But if it turns public orgy, it blows his cover. There’s a limited number of BRAVE BOLD bullshit columns that can be written before voters start to see all the cat food and vouchers and wonder what’s so brave and bold about them.

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    RinaX

    Damn, white people, do blue eyes make that much of a difference? He looks like a guy who should be featured on an Investigation Discovery show. He’s fucking creepy.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    His hope is that Ryan’s unjustified reputation for honest wonkery will transfer to the ticket as a whole.

    Clearly, Obama’s only move now is to replace Biden with Ezra Klein.

  4. 4.

    AA+ Bonds

    One of Krugman’s best recent entries

    rikryah had a great post about the links between Bain and the Salvadoran right wing death squads in the other thread – Romney and Bain are one current incarnation of what Adam Curtis called ‘the Mayfair Set’ – rogue capitalists who build their own economic and foreign policy base with the collusion of elites hidden within the state

    Hell, Romney visited Mayfair when he went to England – his initiation, so to speak

    I’d argue, if you ain’t seen The Mayfair Set (the film), you can’t understand Romney

    The plus is that the entire film aired on the BBC so it is available for free in its entirety on YouTube, Google Video and the Internet Archive

  9. 9.

    El Cid

    If you sound like you’re talking about “the numbers,” then you must be talking about “the numbers”, because substance is for boring people and uptight fuddy duddy teachers in TV shows aimed at kids.

  10. 10.

    AT

    Hes very good at giving earnest looks! Would fit in well in a Bronte or Austen novel, coincidentally his care for the lower classes comes from the same era

  11. 11.

    cathyx

    Or maybe Romney is just so out of touch that he thinks Ryan is well liked and will help him get elected.

  12. 12.

    jl

    I think Krugman’s political analysis is more suspect than his economic analysis, and he whiffed it here.

    I think Romney has been staking out chickenshit little moves to the middle, and when his spox trotted out the Romneycare line (which Romney has trotted out several times in trial runs, starting the primary) the moronic wingnuts freaked out and Ryan was red meat for the deranged loons that make up most of the party now.

    I hope for trainwreck, and political disgrace for the Ryan and Romney ticket.

    Ryan for Regent and Romney for Punkident, is what the wingnuts want, I doubt they will be able to restrain themselves, because the are dangerous grown up infants, and vicious loons, and fools.

  13. 13.

    Edo

    @Todd: I know they’re trying to go for the red-white-blue imagery, but what I saw in there was a lot of silver. Totally appropriate for the clear (and insha’Allah distant) second place contenders.

  14. 14.

    AA+ Bonds

    Speaking of dumbasses in the media, the S.H.A.M.E. Project just released the goods on anti-Elizabeth-Warren activist Adam Davidson

    Plus, an entire ebook on Malcolm Gladwell’s ties to free market fundamentalists for $2.99

  16. 16.

    Linda Featheringill

    @RinaX:

    Damn, white people, do blue eyes make that much of a difference?

    I guess it does to some people. On the other hand, Bill Clinton has blue eyes and doesn’t get all that fanfare. Never did.

    Maybe it’s exciting to be a Republican with blue eyes.

    In short, Rina, I’m not sure I understand it all.

  17. 17.

    AA+ Bonds

    @jl:

    Yes but why Ryan; there are plenty of rightists the Romney handlers could have selected

    The answer is that the Village’s tongue is up Ryan’s ass, Erskine Bowles’s tongue is up Ryan’s ass, Ryan is the sort of sociopath who flies among proto-fascist opinion makers

  19. 19.

    Hunter Gathers

    Some one want to tell me how Ryan helps improve Romney’s numbers with Hispanic and women voters? ‘Cause I’m not seeing how Ryan helps Romney in that regard. The Village can focus on white males over 50 all they want; unless Romney improves with female and Hispanic voters, I don’t see how he can win. And picking a jar of mayonnaise (even if the jar is carrying a calculator and some spreadsheets) isn’t going to help Romney get to 270 electoral votes.

  20. 20.

    jl

    Ryan for Regent and Romney for Punk
    This how low the GOP’s sunk
    Two cheesy liars and peddlers of bunk
    Far stinkier than a week old dead stunk.

    Ryan and Romney, running political disgrace! Onward!

  21. 21.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Linda Featheringill:

    This should not be that much of a surprise: the closer your ideology moves toward fascism, the more important it is that your boy be a buff young angry man with piercing blue eyes, ready to punish the deserving

    Atrios correctly identifies this as an erotic choice for Republicans

  22. 22.

    Linda Featheringill

    @AT: #10

    He’s very good at giving earnest looks! Would fit in well in a Bronte or Austen novel, coincidentally his care for the lower classes comes from the same era.

    He looks like he stepped from the front cover of a romantic paperback. [That’s not a compliment.]

  23. 23.

    scav

    Wanker / Wonker ’12

    Bratman and Boy Wonker, the Caped Crudesadists!

    Willard Wonker and the Offshored Factory.

  24. 24.

    Linda Featheringill

    @AA+ Bonds: #21

    Atrios correctly identifies this as an erotic choice for Republicans.

    You’re saying that Aryans are turned on by blue eyes? Hmmm.

  25. 25.

    AA+ Bonds

    I think some people here are overestimating

    1) the number of Americans who vote
    2) the resistance of white male independent voters to trickle-down from fascist Democrats and fascist pundits who explain that Ryan is this cool dude

  26. 26.

    Zifnab25

    Am I the only one that looks at Romney/Ryan and sees a conservative version of Kerry/Edwards? You’ve got a millionaire family politician with a reputation for flip-flopping and his base-appeasing populist side-kick hero who we try not to look too deeply at because he’s head-to-toe dirty. They’re running on a platform of “We’re not the incumbents, and everyone hates the incumbents, amirite?”

    Not to speak too ill of Kerry (although Edwards can eat a bag of dicks). But I’m curious what the parallels are here. It seems like the Republicans of ’12 are grabbing for the Dem playbook in ’04.

  27. 27.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Among the (small) number of people who care about what the Beltway media has to say, the number of people who unerringly take to heart what they say is even smaller. I think people who care about the Village already either love or hate Ryan, and people who don’t know about Ryan are going to find out about him from sources other than some B-team careerist Op-Ed writer.

  28. 28.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Baud: LOL, Ezra tweeted after the announcement that this was probably the best way to ensure the campaign included charts.

  29. 29.

    AA+ Bonds

    Don’t buy that CYA Bowles editorial either – Bowles called Ryan ‘Presidential material’ last year at UNC, and Ezra Klein suggests that Bowles is on the short list for Treasury Secretary, so that is what that’s about.

    Romney gets elected and there will be a special slimy place for the human newt, Erskine Bowles

    If you are wondering how Ryan got this rep, it is from Democrats like Bowles talking him up – the damage has been done, and apparently Bowles will not be allowed to fade away no matter how many Senate elections he loses

  30. 30.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    /sigh/ catching up with Rachel Maddow, Dan Rather says that “rightly or wrongly” Paul Ryan has a reputation as the guy who wants to kill Medicare and Medicaid. I guess the man has been hit harder and fallen farther than anyone by the Screaming Meemies and Howler Monkeys of the right, but good lord.

  31. 31.

    Joseph Nobles

    @Hunter Gathers: I think Romney hopes the priests, bishops, and cardinals can whip up the Hispanic vote with the Aquinas-idolizing Ryan. No, seriously, when Ryan threw Ayn under the bus a few months back, he was totally serious about his Aquinas love. Not that he ever let St. Thomas near his budgeting tactics…

  33. 33.

    Harlan T. Fescue

    @Hunter Gathers:

    Some one want to tell me how Ryan helps improve Romney’s numbers with Hispanic and women voters?

    As one of Governor Romney’s “Freedom Riders,” I can field this question from my own perspective. Neither I nor anyone else affiliated with the Republican Party can fathom a guess as to the voting behavior of brown peoples, so I wouldn’t presume to explain why Young Ryan will will illegals and maids and whatnot over to Our Side. With lady voters (and I, for one, still hope to see the day when the franchise is once again the purview of males alone, but I digress), Young Ryan’s appeal is obvious. Why, one glance of those piercing blue eyes and any American woman, from the morally upstanding ladies of the Republican Party to the degenerate sluts of the Democrat Party, will instantly find herself desperate to fornicate with him on the spot. Since we all know that the feminine voter behaves irrationally, as females do in everything, such a powerful desire for coupling will inevitably secure their votes.

    I hope this helps clarify things.

  36. 36.

    scav

    @Suffern Ace: Careful, with that particular brand, you can’t make beerbrats. Sorry.

    [ETA: meaning, the original brand. The blue eyed wonder brand might be amenable to it.]

  37. 37.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Joseph Nobles:

    Well, he’d better keep hoping. The Conference of Bishops came out against the Ryan budget when it was written. Ryan’s a CINO, in my lapsed-Catholic opinion.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suffern Ace: proving that I can find something to like in any politician (don’t know if I could do it with Willard, though I will say he has awesome taste in real estate) and am therefore open-minded and bipartisan, I am impressed that Ryan makes his own bratwurst.

  42. 42.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    I would say that Ryan’s beliefs about capitalism qualify him as an apostate, and the bishops as cowards for not denouncing him as such

    It is all in the catechism – according to Ryan’s supposed Roman Catholic beliefs, there is no justice in who wins and loses in the free market

  47. 47.

    Hill Dweller

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Rather has been awful in every appearance I’ve seen, regardless of the show.

    Speaking of Maddow, I saw the clip of Willard telling everyone that Obama cut 700 billion from Medicare, which is a lie. Their only strategy seems to be just muddy the water with lies until November.

  51. 51.

    Hunter Gathers

    @Harlan T. Fescue:

    Why, one glance of those piercing blue eyes and any American woman, from the morally upstanding ladies of the Republican Party to the degenerate sluts of the Democrat Party, will instantly find herself desperate to fornicate with him on the spot

    My one woman focus group (Mrs. Gathers) informs me that she would refuse to fornicate with any male over the age of 30 who dyes their hair. She’s of the opinion that Senor Ryan has several boxes of Mahogany Black 126 in his Congressional office closet. The ears, which look like a stiff breeze would carry him away, don’t help either.

  53. 53.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Gene Wilder is also from Wisconsin, so how about Willard Wonka and the Outsourced Factory?

  54. 54.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Hell no, I doubt Persians would find Ryan very fly given what he has to say

    Republicans are mongrels like the rest of us – it’s the white power fantasy combined with the sadomasochism that Atrios correctly identifies as the erotic component

    The authoritarian fantasy – the Leader’s erotic power and the follower’s self-identity, confused, with the follower begging for purification and the autonomy and power that must accompany such perfection

    The blue-eyed fantasy is just an artifact of who has been running the show since capitalism’s rise – if they are displaced, that image will follow

    But in the current context, Ryan is extraordinarily dangerous, and Romney’s success or failure is secondary

  56. 56.

    Harlan T. Fescue

    @Hunter Gathers: Well, as a Successful and very wealthy man, I speak with authority here, and I can assure you that any right-thinking woman would wish to engage in intercourse with Young Ryan at any available opportunity. Perhaps this Mrs. Gathers person suffers from one of the many hysterias that are sadly so common to those of her gender, this being part of the reason many of Us still work for the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment.

  58. 58.

    Hunter Gathers

    @AA+ Bonds: I’ve been hard at work thanklessly defending this big-ass country since the second American Revolution; the invisible one.

  60. 60.

    beltane

    Also, Paul Ryan does not have “piercing” blue eyes. Paul Newman had piercing blue eyes; Paul Ryan has cold, gelatinous-looking fish eyes.

  62. 62.

    Brian R.

    I love how the media always gives him an “A” for effort.

    “Aw, the poor little guy tried to crunch the numbers! Sure, his answers to all the algebra problems were ‘John Galt’ but the little scamp tried his heart out.”

    With the media, every article about Ryan is like Everyone Gets a Ribbon Day at the nearest middle school.

  63. 63.

    Brian R.

    @AA+ Bonds:

    I think that if Paul Ryan had a mohawk I might fuck him

    Don’t worry. Even without the mohawk, he’ll still try to fuck you.

  64. 64.

    Bill Arnold

    @jl:

    I think Krugman’s political analysis is more suspect than his economic analysis, and he whiffed it here.

    I think Krugman is using his pulpit to serve the Villagers clear and early notice. That is, the message is the important thing, not the analysis.

  65. 65.

    Leo

    The lead story at Politico right now, “Mitt Romney’s chemistry experiment,” is a pretty good indication that Krugman is right. The argument it makes is that Ryan is supposed to tell us something about Romney and his supposed bold leadershipness. Ryan is a good pick because he helps Romney shake the cowardly weather-vane image that he had developed.

    This story, although utter horseshit on its merits, is consistent with the messages out of the Romney campaign about how this was Romney’s choice alone, and he went against all his advisers. He is the decisive decider.

  68. 68.

    Roger Moore

    @Hunter Gathers:

    She’s of the opinion that Senor Ryan has several boxes of Mahogany Black 126 in his Congressional office closet.

    Is she also of the belief that Congressman Ryan spends a bit too much time in that closet, too?

  70. 70.

    Jennifer

    As I just noted over at TBogg’s – Holy Shit! Either Paul Krugman was reading Balloon Juice comments this weekend, or I’m as smart as Paul Krugman.

    Let’s just say that the former is much, much, much more likely than the latter.

  71. 71.

    rmirth

    I don’t know what Rmoney was thinking picking Ryan for VP. He’s never run for statewide office (appearances on Fox News and CPAC don’t count!), never gone outside the beltway/right-wing media bubble. It’s early days yet and will be interesting to see how he plays in “real America”. Plus the ticket itself – neither has foreign policy or defense experience. Surely even the Villagers/VSP will soon see that.

  72. 72.

    different-church-lady

    @RinaX:

    Damn, white people, do blue eyes make that much of a difference?

    Honest to god, for some people blue eyes are the only thing that matters. A guy can be fat, bald and doughy, and as long as he’s got gorgeous blue eyes some women will fall all over him.

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    “BRAVE and BOLD!” ain’t nothing but the subtitle for “GAME CHANGER II:”

    In 2016 they’ll release “GAME CHANGER III IN 3D!” and then they’ll reboot the franchise.

  75. 75.

    Barry

    “But if it turns public orgy, it blows his cover. There’s a limited number of BRAVE BOLD bullshit columns that can be written before voters start to see all the cat food and vouchers and wonder what’s so brave and bold about them.”

    And we haven’t even seen that limit with the Hubble yet.

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