PAUL RYAN: MORE PAP AND PABULUM FROM THE MASTER OF HYPOCRISY

1/26/13

Representative and erstwhile vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) appeared at a National Review Institute event today and accomplished nothing other than demonstrating how far the National Review has fallen since the death of Bill Buckley.

Mr. Ryan offered up the usual pap and pabulum of which he is one of Washington’s foremost dispensers.  Some examples:

"We can't get rattled. We won't play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united. We have to show that if given the chance, we can govern. We have better ideas."

"If we want to promote conservatism, we'll need to use every tool at our disposal.  Sometimes, we will have to reject the president's proposals — that time may come more than once. And sometimes we'll have to make them better."

The Wisconsin wunderkind went on to bloviate that the GOP should have two main goals for the next four years:  "to mitigate bad policies" and "to advance good policy wherever we can."

This is what passes for deep thought in today’s GOP.

Mr. Ryan could have been truly refreshing and honest, admittedly two traits completely out of character for him, had he provided advice based not on the completely false image he seeks to portray, and that the hapless GOPers have somehow bought, but on the way he has actually conducted himself.  If he spoke based on what he DOES, rather than what he SAYS, Mr. Ryan would have said something like:

“I’ll give you some advice.   Don’t be a chump and work your butt off in the private sector where hours are long, work is tedious, no cameras follow you around and there are no legions of sycophants around whose job it is to tell you how wonderful you are.

“No, don’t be an idiot.  Get on the public payroll and stay there, like I have for my entire life.  Focus your efforts on never having to do the things you advise other people to do, on never having to live with the consequences of the laws you endorse and help to pass.  And never, ever live or work outside Washington; this place is amazing!

“And if you really want to cash in, spend your time at the public trough decrying everyone else at the public trough.  Spend your time decrying the debilitating impact and innate evil of the very government whose checks you cash for a living.

“Further, never, ever let your purported philosophy of government stand in the way of your career, of your adulation, of your advancement.   When that philosophy conflicts with further solidifying, and expanding, your spot at the trough, go with the latter.   Look at me!   I talk about small government and the virtues of the private sector all the time.  But when not voting for TARP, or the car bailout, or Medicare Part D might have had the remotest chance of ending my sinecure here and forcing me to get a real job back in Wisconsin among the people I purport to represent, why, I just voted heartily for those most egregious expansions of government in the history of my time on the Hill.

“Don’t worry about being attacked for, or even called on, the utter hypocrisy that would characterize your very career.   The so-called ‘conservative’ movement is filled with people who won’t care about what you do; they will just lap up what you say.  They will praise you as a guy with the ‘right stuff,” they will just roll around and swallow the figurative cow excrement you shovel them.   These chumps will actually believe you mean what you say!  Can you believe it?”


Now, THAT would have been a truly honest speech.  But we are talking about Paul Ryan here, so such a speech would never, ever take place.