Paul Ryan Breaks Down Under Wonkterrogation [Updated]

[UCmeNdc]

Paul Ryan Breaks Down Under Wonkterrogation [Updated]


Paul Ryan’s great genius has not merely been that he has united conservative Republicans around a single vision — several Republicans have done this before — but that he has simultaneously persuaded moderates that he shares their beliefs as well. That is how Ryan has pitched himself to America, not as a right-wing ideologue but as a thoughtful numbers guy. Literally every piece of evidence in Ryan’s career — from his formative infatuation with Ayn Rand to his indoctrination in the works of supply-siders to his mentorships under Jack Kemp and Sam Brownback to his entire voting record in public life — says that Ryan is a hard-core supply-sider whose overarching goal is to reduce tax rates on the rich, far more than it is to bring budget deficits to heel. Nevertheless, Ryan has managed to persuade legions of moderates and moderate conservatives — see James Stewart, Ruth Marcus, and Ross Douthat, to take a few examples — that he is secretly willing to raise tax revenue as part of some bipartisan agreement.


Here Ryan is descending into word salad, which impresses observers because he is using terms that pertain to tax policy — “statically,” “Joint Tax Committee” — but he is not using them in a way that makes any sense.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/paul-ryan-breaks-down-under-wonkterrogation.html

[burnsei sensei]

1. Appealing to moderates?

Paul Ryan’s great genius has not merely been that he has united conservative Republicans around a single vision — several Republicans have done this before — but that he has simultaneously persuaded moderates that he shares their beliefs as well.

Only to self-deceived moderates.
There is no "great genius" in Paul Ryan, he is a Tim Geithner wannabe.
Nothing more.
What the reporter is observing here is not Ryan's "genius" but the utter vacuousness of so-called "moderates."
The only moderates who support Ryan are conservative extremists who have been telling themselves and their starry-eyed constituents that they are moderate.
The Republican Party is impoverishing this country.
It is de-stabilizing policy-making apparatus.
These pretenders to freedom are the new Jacobins.

[Scuba]

2. "Numbers wonk" Ryan doesn't know a spreadsheet Row from a Column.

In the runup to the 2012 election he said it "would take too long" to explain his budget.

He's not a wonk, he's a wanker.

[Sunlei]

3. Ryans try for VP exposed him in public for the first time. That liar brand will follow him forever.

Ryan only ran because he was SO SURE, they would win. He will never recover or rebrand, a loser for life.

Lay off the testosterone cream, loser!

[magical thyme]

4. Paul Ryan’s great genius?!?!?!

I had to check the url. This wasn't the Onion?!? Borowitz?!?!

[Squinch]

5. On the plus side, he DOES look just like Dopey from Snow White.

So, he does have qualities. Or rather, a quality.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Which moderates has he appealed to?

Where are these legions of moderates?