If you want to understand why Paul Ryan has suddenly become the de facto leader of the sad, pathetic, shriveled thing known as the Republican party, you need look no farther than his response to the classless sandbagging he got from the Bringer of Kinetic Military Action and Vacationer-in-Chief:
“I thought the president’s invitation…was an olive branch. Instead, what we got was a speech that was excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate, and hopelessly inadequate to address our country’s fiscal challenges… What we heard today was a political broadside from our campaigner in chief. This is very sad and very unfortunate. Rather than building bridges, he’s poisoning wells.”
As I said on the radio yesterday, if anyone had spoken like this to the princeling earlier in his life, he very likely never would have become president. Instead, Obama has been coddled and cosseted throughout his glide-path trajectory — maverick Democrat Mickey Kaus just called him “the biggest affirmative action baby in history,” and said he was a lousy politician to boot. No one, it seems, has ever sat him down and explained to him how thoroughly mediocre he really is. Call it the audacity of mope.
And yet there he is, partying it up in the White House and launching his billion-dollar reelection bid with a speech that would have made Rosa Luxemburg proud, so maybe believing your own myth can take you all the way from Punahou to the presidency without every having to accomplish a damn thing. As the saying goes, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Which is why it’s important that the handful of Republicans with spine speak sternly to Obama the way Ryan did. Pace all the number-crunchers and crystal-ball-gazers, he won’t be defeated by conventional means, or by hopeful comparisons to Jimmy Carter, or by competing programs, and certainly not by the weak-tea “collegiality” of Boehner & Co. Playing by the rules doesn’t work when the other team is playing a different game entirely.
There’s no there there with Obama, just the legend of his own invincibility. The sooner the Republicans come to grips with that, the sooner they’ll figure out how to beat him.
That is, if they really want to.
He didn't know what to do with Ryan at the sit-down over the Obamacare bill some months ago- Ryan made him look like a school boy, even as Obama was styling himself as Exalted Guidance Counselor at one of his Great Teaching Moments®.
Aside, if you recall, Dear Leader deigned to refer to those present by their first names.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt has never been more apparent than it is today that speaking truth to power takes a fair amount of courage - and heavy-gauge emotional armor - when the power you're speaking to is a member of a minority group owned and protected by the Democratic Party.
Tea Partiers know very well what happens to those who dare to suggest that Barack Obama's way is not the only way. Americans who viciously attacked the policies of President Bush were hailed as truth-telling patriots, while little old ladies waving signs that read "No More Taxes" are demonized as radical (and likely violent) racists.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis has to be one of the best Corner posts I've ever read. And I've been a Corner reader for quite awhile.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMichael,
You have just described Palin, who was the early and frequent critic of TheWon. She suffered for it but is still standing tall and still throwing punches. Tomorrow she makes an appearance at Tea Party rally in Madison (need I name the state?), bravely going into the belly of the bloated governmental beast.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo just to make sure I understand your point, this "lousy politician" for whom "there's no there there" somehow can't be defeated by playing by the rules? This is exactly the kind of logic that keeps me voting Democrat.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou are exactly right. That is why we need Romney for the nomination. Romney will take on Obama tenaciously. If you go back and see how Romney took on Kennedy (and was the closest to beat him) and Shannon O'Brien (winning the Governorship of Massachusetts), you will see the type of hard-nosed campaign designed to go at the opposition's weaknesses relentlessly. No one used Mary Jo Kopechne's tragic death more effectively against Kennedy than Romney. To put it another way, if Romney was running in 2008, we would have heard a lot more about Reverend Wright and Obama’s lack of experience. If Romney runs, his campaign will kill Obama on two things that he cannot defend: no jobs and the unprecedented deficits.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI honestly think a very strange thing has happened on the way to the forum. While everyone, but everyone is posturing and positioning, especially presidential wannabes, the only one who is both capable and now credible at Washington level leadership is Ryan. He made a fool out of everyone else in the room at the Healthcare debacle. Repubs are liable to wake up and realize that the people just won't stand for any more from them and they want a stand up guy who can lead: Ryan, and we won't take no for an answer. Could happen.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"a speech that would have made Rosa Luxemburg proud"
Sometimes when I'm bored I go on over to the barrel in the corner to shoot fish, but this is just too easy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbout time. Even many conservatives have been unduly impressed with Obama's education credentials and ignored his lack of self driven accomplishment. Everyone talks about how smart he is. For crying out loud, he tells s how sharp the needle is but keeps touching it. Idiot savant.
What we must do now is show fealty to the Office of the President, and as loyal Americans MAKE the guy trying but failing to fill that suit successful. Drag him through these last two years like the wounded and inadequate leader he is and show a phalanx of Americans to the world. Support the constitution and avoid evolving into a parliamentary form of government like we have flirted with so dangerously the last few years. Exploit the full breadth of American talent via people like Ryan. Then send him on his way with a good pension in 2012.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree. Ryan's way is the only way to talk about the man-child president (glide-path trajectory is great). Boehner is just too diplomatic. Everything he says gets lost in the land of political mumbo-jumbo. No one hears anything unless it's direct truth to power, just like Ryan. It must be harder to do than we think, because there sure aren't many Republicans who know how to come across with strong, factual statements like Paul Ryan or Newt Gingrich. Personally, I really like Thaddeus McCotter from Michigan. This guy is eloquent, funny and serious.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRyan should be Speaker of the House. Like Reagan delivering the speech at the Ford nomination... crowd gulped; feeling they'd nominated the wrong guy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"if anyone had spoken like this to the princeling earlier in his life, he very likely never would have become president."
Putting aside that he went through his early years as a mixed-race kid with dumbo ears and the name "Barack" - not exactly a recipe for peer acceptance - you seem to have forgotten than in Obama's political life, certainly in the 2008 elections, he was accused of being everything from a Manchurian candidate and Muslim spy to Stalin and Hitler. I think he can handle Rep Ryan calling him "campaigner in chief" - and I hardly think such horrific inflammatory rhetoric would have kept him from the presidency.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor the record:
" maverick Democrat Mickey Kaus just called him “the biggest affirmative action baby in history,” and said he was a lousy politician to boot."
Welllllll yeah he said he was a lousy politician, but he also implied that W. was an equally lousy politician and said he'd vote for him (Barry) anyway. So I think you may be overselling the degree to which Kaus thinks Barry is "lousy".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRyan should have got up and walked out. And visibly so.
I'm sorry, but waiting until later to say what you were thinking is no excuse. He should have stood up, thanked the President for his invitation, and wished Obama luck with his campaign speech. Or, stood up, and offered to debate the President 'right here, right now' on his B-S claims. What's the big deal, honestly? Raise your hand, and ask the President how he can say such garbage with a straight face. We're way too nice at these photo ops.
And shame on those patsies from the "Debt Commission" for sitting there and listing to Obama prattle on. They were window dressing, and should not have afforded Obama the pleasure of making fools out of them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"the sad, pathetic, shriveled thing known as the Republican party"
What cheese goes best with that whine ?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRyan's proposal is a rehash of failed Republican policies that led to the economic collapse of 2008. All that is missing is the privatization of social security, which would have worked out really well for people when Bush sent the economy into the toilet. I am proud that the president stood up and relegated Ryan's proposal to the dustbin, where it belongs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs usual, I find myself nodding my head to Jenna's comments. And I think this is one of the better Corner posts I've read in a long time.
@Harry: That's a ridiculously silly and immature reason to vote for anyone in any direction. Because of a columnist's flawed (in your opinion) logic? Please, even if you are inclined to vote Republican, stay home!
@BMore: Most of the accusations leveled at Barack Obama in 2008 were just like the ones you mentioned. Completely absurd comparisons to Hitler, et al. Big difference between completely incredible accusations and objective, thoughtful, but still strong accusations, such as those leveled by Paul Ryan.
@hokkoda: Yeah, that is a great idea. Dispense with all manners and decorum and walk out in the middle of a speech by the POTUS. Briliant. I'm pretty sure that a stinging rebuttal from your OWN presser after the speech in question is the appropriate thing to do. Let's not have another "you lie" or "not true" moment, OK?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGood lord, you'd think he stepped down from the podium and gave Paul Ryan a wedgie to hear all this shrieking and sobbing. Must have been a good speech.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen Boehner and Ryan fight the Democrats on entitlements, it's basically a struggle between center-leftists who can read graphs and those who can't.
Both of them have the same goal, that of preserving the welfare state, and neither of them take seriously the historically conservative opinion (still held by many of us) that the New Deal and the Great Society were blind alleys to be retreated from, not infrastructure that can be preserved if tweaked.
Coburn, DeMint, Flake, and the Pauls should be leading the GOP on this, not only because they're right while the leadership is wrong, but also because they, not the leadership, have the mandate from the people right now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"That is why we need Romney for the nomination. Romney will take on Obama tenaciously."
LOL! Thanks for the laughs, you owe me a new keyboard.
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