What is it with Paul Ryan? The hair? The guy spouts boiler plate rightwing rhetoric yet is taken seriously as a deepthinking statesman. Not only does he nab airtime on the Lying Charlie Sykes show; the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel allows him to befoul the dead trees upon which it is printed.
Case in point, his column this Sunday on how Democrats didn't win the latest election, the Republicans lost because they strayed from conservative values. This is a bullshit argument on many counts and the Brawler hopes -- in between working, taking care of toddler Brawler and being a good husband to Mrs. Brawler -- to address the scope of this ignoramus argument.
But let's take a look at one point Ryan raises:
To a lesser extent, the Schiavo dispute was perceived by the public as another betrayal of conservative principles. Technically, this was a case about court jurisdiction, which is relevant for Congress to consider.
Nonetheless, it was perceived as the ultimate big-government intrusion into a family affair.
Here's what Ryan had to say in the 3/22/05 Cap Times & Wisconsin State Journal:
About 2 p.m. Sunday, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, learned he'd need to fly to Washington, D.C., for an emergency House debate on Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose feeding tube was removed Friday on a state judge's order.
Ryan cut short an archery lesson with his nephew and gave up grilling dinner for his family to catch the last flight out of Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport.
"Any inconvenience in my life paled in comparison to the issue that was before us," Ryan said Monday. "This is a matter of life or death. There's no higher principle that we're involved in."
"We are simply asserting Terri Schiavo's constitutionally protected right to life," Ryan said. "This is an area where the Constitution delegates the power to Congress. It is certainly in our purview to do what we did."
Ryan said Congress is not inserting itself into a family matter.
"This was not a private bill," he said. "This is giving her access to the federal court system, much like mass murderers get."
Ryan called Schiavo "a healthy, disabled woman without a living will and with a serious dispute between her parents and her husband." She is not terminally ill, he said.
"She is not in a coma, she is healthy and does not need machines to keep her alive, other than to feed her," Ryan said. "To end her life is to starve her to death."
Also in the 3/22/05 Journal Sentinel:
Ryan disputed the notion that Schiavo was being kept alive by extraordinary means.
"She is brain damaged and needs help taking in food and drink," he said. "Her life is precious and her rights and her parents' rights should be respected."
Back when the Schiavo case was raging, Ryan said it was a matter of her "right to life" -- and voted accordingly. Now it's a "case about court jurisdiction."
What changed? Oh yeah! The public turned against the Republicans over the Schiavo matter.
Isn't it weird how Paul didn't talk about how he voted or why he did in the Shiavo case?
Paul, you forgot one reason why Republicans got their asses handed to them last year. They claim to be a party of virtue that adheres to eternal, fixed values (fiscal, moral and otherwise) and demonize their opponents as amoral sinners.
When in fact modern Republicans have proven themselves to be hypocrites who are not above rewriting history -- even in an era of online databases.
Comments