Hell From the Veep?
Hell From the Veep?
"At least five times, Ryan misrepresented the facts. And while none of the statements were new, the context was. It’s one thing to hear them on a thirty-second television spot or even in a stump speech before a small crowd. It’s something else entirely to hear them in prime time address, as a vice presidential nominee is accepting his party’s nomination and speaking to the entire country." —Jonathan Cohn
Rep. Paul Ryan's address to the GOP convention, in the role of vice presidential nominee, has drawn a curious contrast of reactions. Republican rubbish has become so deep in recent days that one needs hip-waders, at the very least, to traverse the landscape of right-wing dishonesty. Still, though, a question remains as to whether or not the question of Republicans as liars really matters.
Steve Benen comments:
Dan Amira called the speech "appallingly disingenuous and shamelessly hypocritical," but added this gem:
Most of the millions of people who watched the speech on television tonight do not read fact-checks or obsessively consume news 15 hours a day, and will never know how much Ryan's case against Obama relied on lies and deception. Ryan's pants are on fire, but all America saw was a barn-burner.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer said he counted "seven or eight" claims that "fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute," but concluded the lies didn't matter because it was "a powerful speech" that gave Republicans what they "were hoping for."
CNN's Erin Burnett added, "There will be issues with some of the facts, but it motivated people."
Let that sentence roll around in your brain for a moment, and ponder what it means for our country.
Ryan lied uncontrollably, but that's not terribly important. It undermines our democracy and the basic norms of the American political system, but no one seems to care anymore. Ryan thinks we're idiots, but his cynicism matters less than the electoral implications.
It is an interesting question:
Does the pretense of honesty matter, or is everything assessed according to emotional criteria?
That is to say, does it really matter if Romney, Ryan, and the Republicans are setting new standards for political dishonesty?
Jonathan Cohn wondered if this was perhaps "the most dishonest convention speech ... ever", and picked five issues to consider:
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GM plant closure in Janesville, Wisconsin: Production ended in December, 2008, workers were laid off. A small group remained on the line to finish outstanding orders, leaving their jobs four months later in early 2009; therefore, the plant closure is on Obama's watch, according to Ryan.
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Medicare: Whenever Romney and Ryan attack the Obama administration for cutting Medicare, they seem to believe it doesn't matter that the Ryan Budget would cut at least the same amount. Furthermore, as Cohn notes:
... Obamacare's cut to Medicare was a reduction in what the plan pays hospitals and insurance companies. And the hospitals said they could live with those cuts, because Obamacare was simultaneously giving more people health insurance, alleviating the financial burden of charity care.
What Obamacare did not do is take away benefits. On the contrary, it added benefits, by offering free preventative care and new prescription drug coverage. By repealing Obamacare, Romney and Ryan would take away those benefits—and, by the way, add to Medicare's financial troubles because the program would be back to paying hospitals and insurers the higher rates.
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Credit downgrade: The kindest thing that can be said about the conservative take on the debt ceiling dispute and resulting credit downgrade is that it must be Obama's fault for not showing leadership by doing everything House Republicans told him to do.
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Deficit: Cohn's explanation is concise enough:
Ryan said “President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him” and proclaimed “We need to stop spending money we don’t have.” In fact, this decade’s big deficits are primarily a product of Bush-era tax cuts and wars. And you know who voted for them? Paul Ryan.
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Social safety net: Strangely, Ryan seems to have used rhetoric more popular among liberals than conservatives, talking about our communal responsibilities to each other, the protection of society's weakest, and the old maxim that, "The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves". Ryan also asserted, "We can make the safety net safe again." Cohn calls the rhetoric, "positively galling", especially given the fact that our poor and downtrodden are the big losers under the Ryan budget proposal.
Still, though, Amira, Blitzer, Burnett, and others are hardly in the realm of the extraordinary to suggest that Ryan's apparent dishonesty is beside the point. Of course, therein lies the question: How does the press describe the campaign rhetoric? That is, what kind of warm glow and polling bounce can the Romney/Ryan ticket expect, and how would those numbers be affected by widespread recognition that, even in the world of American politics, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are exceptionally, exceedingly, almost mind-bogglingly dishonest?
It might hurt a politician if the press covers his boudoir tweets, but we don't consider that sort of scandal coverage a matter of the media taking sides. But if the press, by and large, begins calling out Republican lies? Would conservatives complain that the press is taking sides?
Well, they already are, but so far the complaint isn't getting traction beyond the usual right-wing circles. But as
Dan Amira noted, "Most of the millions of people who watched the speech on television tonight do not read fact-checks or obsessively consume news fifteen hours a day, and will never know how much Ryan's case against Obama relied on lies and deception."
The primary questions remaining are simple enough: Is this really all the GOP has? Will the press communicate the situation clearly to voters?
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Notes:
Cohn, Jonathan. "The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?" The New Republic. August 29, 2012. TNR.com. August 30, 2012. http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/10673...speech-five-lies-gm-medicare-deficit-medicaid
Benen, Steve. "Paul Ryan stands on a foundation of lies". The Maddow Blog. August 30, 2012. MaddowBlog.MSNBC.com. August 30, 2012. http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/30/13566768-paul-ryan-stands-on-a-foundation-of-lies
Amira, Dan. "Paul Ryan Bets on the Ignorance of America". Daily Intel. August 29, 2012. NYMag.com. August 30, 2012. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/paul-ryan-rnc-speech-lies-fact-check.html
