Paul Ryan: 6% body fat, 3% integrity. (Image by Gobonobo.)
- The Rove-Gingrich playbook, which says you can get away with saying anything provided you code it in the right words, is dead. Maybe it’s because words mean less in the Internet Age or because media’s been disseminated and fact-checking is in the hands of the many. I know plenty of misinformation and conspiracies get legs on the Internet, but that is on the fringes, not in the mainstream of Presidential politics. The GOP hasn’t figured this out yet. They still think rhetoric can cover up who they really are. Sarah Palin was a terrible VP nominee not only because she’s inane and petty but because she set herself up as a fraud by standing up at the 2008 Republican Convention and introducing herself as a liar. Yes, it took a couple of weeks for her to be exposed, but then the backlash was brutal. Paul Ryan, likewise, lied into the camera so many times (while trying to couch his bullshit in the right phrases) that he will also be in for a bruising rebuttal. He wasn’t artful–he was deceitful, and he’s provided the Dems with many avenues of attack.
- As out of touch as the GOP is, the television media is even worse. Lawrence O’Donnell and Michael Steele reaching across the aisle to agree that Ryan’s presentation was more important than his substance, as if they were analyzing the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960, revealed two people who have no idea that the world has changed dramatically recently. And to hear countless well-fed, insulated talkers crow about Ryan’s “youthful” musical taste and how it will appeal to young voters, is to have your mind boggled. No offense to Led Zeppelin, but I assumed Ryan chose one of their songs to play at the end of his speech in order to reassure seniors about Medicare. Ryan will no more attract young voters because of his age than Palin did women because of her gender. His appearance is young, but he’s spiritually been an old hack his whole career. And it’s been a long time since that kind of nonsense has rocked and rolled.
Tags: Barack Obama, Paul Ryan