My guess is that Ryan loves seeing what he has so articulately engineered into mainstream print. These stories and columns will be trumpeted as badges of honor by righty talk shows and serve Ryan tactically because they help him separate from the crowded right-wing fringe.
You've got Walker and Cruz and Jindal and Palin and Trump and Huckabee and John Bolton and Rand Paul all trying to out-Right-flank each other for attention and Fox 'News' channel cred.
And be first among equals winning the Koch brothers/Sheldon Adelson/NRA lotteries, few people wouldn't want judgements like these on their permanent records:
* The LA Times says Ryan's recent broadside at the poor was a personal, political calculation:
Rep. Paul Ryan calls for cuts in anti-poverty programs
Welfare, child care, college grants are all under the House Republican's budget ax in a lengthy critique that returns Ryan to the national stage in advance of a possible 2016 presidential run.
Followed by:
* A St. Patrick's weekend op-ed:Paul Ryan’s Irish Amnesia
* Also a take down by Nobel-prize winner and columnist Paul Krugman:
* This being Krugman's earlier slam:That Old-Time Whistle
The poverty hammock fallacy of Paul Ryan and GOP
All the glib slurs against the poor or inner city residents that Ryan utters were used against his Irish ancestors, when the potato famine drove them to this country. The Irish were considered lazy, lacking in intelligence and fit only for manual labor. These smears, meant to divide and conquer, were used against every immigrant group that landed on our shores and have become integrated into our collective unconscious, so as to be spat out reflexively by our lesser selves.
ReplyDeleteRyan suffers from both historical amnesia and a lack of the practical knowledge of economics, made worse by a brain inflammation caused by his obsession with Ayn Rand. Warning: If you read Ayn Rand and find that you aren't laughing, seek help immediately. There should really be a telephone hotline for this terrible affliction.