It’s “Paul Ryan is a serious wonk” season again!

[DonViejo]

The Washington Post admires Paul Ryan's very bold plan to fight poverty by replacing food stamps with dreams

ALEX PAREENE

""

Wow, is it “Paul Ryan is a serious, brilliant, policy-focused wonk with a dynamic and inclusive vision for the future of the Republican Party” season again already? It comes earlier every year. Thanks, Washington Post, for this brilliant example of the genre.

Paul Ryan is ready to move beyond last year’s failed presidential campaign and the budget committee chairmanship that has defined him to embark on an ambitious new project: Steering Republicans away from the angry, nativist inclinations of the tea party movement and toward the more inclusive vision of his mentor, the late Jack Kemp.

I guess it’s nice that Paul Ryan is going to help lead the Republicans away from those crazy Tea Partyers just one short year after Mitt Romney named him his running mate in part because, as the Times said at the time, “Ryan Brings the Tea Party to the Ticket.” So, what is the new focus?

Since February, Ryan (R-Wis.) has been quietly visiting inner-city neighborhoods with another old Kemp ally, Bob Woodson, the 76-year-old civil rights activist and anti-poverty crusader, to talk to ex-convicts and recovering addicts about the means of their salvation.

Oh, good, Paul Ryan is parachuting into “inner-city neighborhoods” to bring back compassionate conservatism. Tell us more about the sober, admirable seriousness of the endeavor that is Paul Ryan solves poverty.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/20/its_paul_ryan_is_a_serious_wonk_season_again/

[Ed Suspicious]

1. It's like opposite day.

[Scuba]

2. This guy?

[valerief]

3. Is Paul Ryan going to be on Alpha House? The characters are lazy, self-serving, and easily bought.

Sounds like Ryan.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

4. Please add a GRAPHIC WARNING

That smug Eddie Munster fuck!!!!

[Gothmog]

5. I really do not understand how anyone can consider Paul Ryan to be a wonk

Ryan is an idiot. If you presented his budget as a business plan to a business person in the real world, you would be laughed at.

[JHB]

7. For some people, "wonk" translates into "blah blah buzzword numbers...

...blah blah other buzzword more numbers, blah blah new buzzword still more numbers".

They have neither the expertise nor the inclination to analyze what was said, so they go more by how they feel about it and what the "buzz" is than by actual evaluation.

Also, the lazy pundit culture that likes to talk about "both sides" being part of the problem need someone they can point to as the "conservative side of the argument". Ryan fills that role, and Washington media is too comfortable with him filling that role to point out (or in some cases even recognize) that he's not arguing in good faith.

It would spoil the mood of the cocktail party to say he's shoveling turds into the punch bowl right in front of everyone, so nobody wants to be the one who does it. They're all drinking booze anyway, so it's not like it matters to them, eh?

[Thor_MN]

6. Simple typo. Paul Ryan is a serious WANK.