The RNC Clown College has gavelled itself back into their usual unscripted incoherence again, and, to the surprise of nobody anywhere, Romney and Ryan are the nominees for God Emperor and Fisher King, and the Tampa strippers now go back to making subsistence wages.
There are actually many reasons why Mitt Romney would choose Paul Ryan for the VP spot, and only one of them involves the fact that Ryan's tax plan would have Romney paying less than one percent in taxes.
Ryan is like Mitt in many ways - he is also in the habit of making huge, sweeping statements about what he'll do, without giving any details about how he'll do them. For example, his vaunted plan to balance the budget? Well, what few details have been released have been described as "ludicrous and cruel."
But more than that, the details he isn't releasing are important. Forbes magazine, one of the most staunchly conservative of publications, point out that it isn't a plan, calling it "vacuously vague" and "all candy and no vegetables."
But he's very protective of that plan: back in April, when the president pointed out some flaws in it, Ryan went on the attack in a speech later that evening, saying "I seem to remember him saying that he was going to be a uniter, not a divider. Frankly this is one and the worst of his broken promises. We do not need a campaigner-in-chief, we need a commander-in-chief."
(Isn't that cute? "The president shouldn't attack me! Democrats can't fight back!" And then he gives a Bush quote but attributes it to Obama. And then he attacks Obama. You have to admire that level of hypocrisy.)
And in keeping with the Romney strategy, he doesn't just avoid criticism by never giving any detailed policies, he's more than happy to lie his ass off, just like Romney. His big speech at the RNC kept fact-checkers busy for days.
But remember, avoiding lies isn't a major priority of this campaign. It was Romney's advisor Neil Newhouse who said "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."
Two men, defined only by their complete inability to tell the truth. They're made for each other.
Now what would the Inevitable Oscar Wilde say about these particular misspeakers of the truth? He once praised an historian for writing a book that was "admirably fact-free," and of course his treatise "The Decay of Lying" is a classic defense of the value of sheer fabrication in human society. And to their credit, for the most part Romney and Ryan don't even bother providing evidence for the lies they tell -- Wilde found that sort of thing small-minded in a politician. Not that The Oscar would in the end have endorsed Romney-Ryan: I think he would have found their heartless attitudes and stale platitudes unbearable. It matters whether the lies one tells are fine or ugly, and these chaps tell ugly lies in the service of the cruel, stupid people who make up their most fervent supporters.
ReplyDeleteOr, as Oscar Wilde put it, and Romney intends to prove, "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
ReplyDeleteAnd now we have Ryan joining in the fun. Isn't it exciting?
The lies matter not to their constituency...what matters is that he/they are telling them what they WANT to hear.
ReplyDeleteYou're all too kind to these rebels. In fact I'm afraid to describe what fate I think they merit, and if we elect them, we do not deserve to survive in any form resembling the nation we claim to be when we express our delusions of grandeur, past and present. A GOP success would prove to the world that we are an ignorant, uncivilized, superstitious, stupid, belligerent and dangerous gang of thieves that has done little to disprove that estimation since the 1940's.
ReplyDeleteRyan: "I seem to remember him saying that he was going to be a uniter, not a divider. Frankly this is one and the worst of his broken promises. We do not need a campaigner-in-chief, we need a commander-in-chief."
ReplyDeleteBush: "I am a uniter, not a divider."
It seems Ryan got the wrong president. But, of course, the candidate who is far right can never be wrong.