GOP veep nominee 'a veritable poster boy for hyperbole and hypocrisy'
The Hex on Paul Ryan
By FRANK BRUNI, NYT
Charlotte, N.C.
The best morsel of political advice I can offer? If you catch even the faintest whisper that you might be nominated for the vice presidency, make for the hills. Run as fast as Paul Ryan pretends to. Your reputation depends on it. Maybe your sanity, too.
The veep nod befouls everything. It’s a cruel pivot. One minute, you’re a largely respected, minimally dissected public servant sitting on some harmless commission or tending to some humdrum state. The next, you’re attaching gratuitous vowels to unsuspecting carbohydrates (Dan Quayle), spraying your septuagenarian hunting buddy with birdshot (Dick Cheney), espying Vladimir Putin’s reared head in the Alaskan airspace (Sarah Palin) or suffering delusions of marathon grandeur (Ryan).
While the veep nod is only occasionally a springboard to the presidency, it’s almost always a trapdoor to mortification.
Look at Ryan. Mere weeks ago, he was as close to a matinee idol as a House Budget Committee could hope to produce, his crush on Ayn Rand noted in passing but his wonky earnestness taken on faith. Now he’s a veritable poster boy for hyperbole and hypocrisy, his record and words generating fresh headlines almost daily. At this pace, a truly fleet one, he’ll be on trial in The Hague by year’s end. Unless he’s moving into the residence at the Naval Observatory, which would be the worse fate for him by far.
(More here.)
Charlotte, N.C.
The best morsel of political advice I can offer? If you catch even the faintest whisper that you might be nominated for the vice presidency, make for the hills. Run as fast as Paul Ryan pretends to. Your reputation depends on it. Maybe your sanity, too.
The veep nod befouls everything. It’s a cruel pivot. One minute, you’re a largely respected, minimally dissected public servant sitting on some harmless commission or tending to some humdrum state. The next, you’re attaching gratuitous vowels to unsuspecting carbohydrates (Dan Quayle), spraying your septuagenarian hunting buddy with birdshot (Dick Cheney), espying Vladimir Putin’s reared head in the Alaskan airspace (Sarah Palin) or suffering delusions of marathon grandeur (Ryan).
While the veep nod is only occasionally a springboard to the presidency, it’s almost always a trapdoor to mortification.
Look at Ryan. Mere weeks ago, he was as close to a matinee idol as a House Budget Committee could hope to produce, his crush on Ayn Rand noted in passing but his wonky earnestness taken on faith. Now he’s a veritable poster boy for hyperbole and hypocrisy, his record and words generating fresh headlines almost daily. At this pace, a truly fleet one, he’ll be on trial in The Hague by year’s end. Unless he’s moving into the residence at the Naval Observatory, which would be the worse fate for him by far.
(More here.)
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