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Paul Ryan is not above exaggerating his athletic prowess, among other things.
One of the more unexpected political controversies of the weekend involved Paul Ryan and, of all things, a marathon.
Last week, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Paul Ryan said that he had run a marathon in under three hours, or, more precisely, "I had a two hour and fifty-something." That is quite speedy, and running fans in the forums of Letsrun.com treated the claim with great skepticism. The Internet bears no trace of the run, and Ryan doesn't have the extremely lean frame of your typical fast marathoner. Also, people who run that quickly are generally neurotic about their times. Shouldn't Ryan remember his exactly? "He is too intense and driven to just forget something like that," one commentator wrote.
Slate and Runner's World investigated. Questions were raised, given the criticism of Ryan's honesty in his convention speech. This evening, the terrific running journalist Scott Douglas figured out that Ryan had actually run a 4:01 in the Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1990, when he was a college student.
Pressed for an explanation, Ryan said through a spokesperson he mixed up his brother's time with his own.
Now, I couldn't care less about Ryan's athletic abilities, and the fact that he got caught lying about his marathon time is trivial when compared to the lies he told in his convention speech last week.
But therein lies the point: a pattern is emerging and it's an important one. When Paul Ryan talks about public policy, he says things that aren't true. When Paul Ryan talks about President Obama's record, he says things that aren't true. And when Paul Ryan talks about himself, he says things that aren't true.
I realize much of the political establishment resists this, because so many are invested in the notion that Ryan is a bold truth-teller with unimpeachable credibility. David Brooks defended the candidate's convention falsehoods by blaming Romney speechwriters for forcing poor Ryan to say things that aren't true.
But given the pattern, isn't it time to reevaluate those old assumptions? Isn't it possible that the establishment that celebrated Ryan's alleged honesty simply fell for a con?
James Fallows had a good piece on why he thinks the marathon lie matters.
We've all exaggerated to make ourselves look better. You've probably done it. I know I have. (Let's not think about the whole category of "what happens on first dates.") But out of prudent self-protection, most people have a sense of "situational awareness" when it comes to self-burnishment. Somebody you're talking to in a bar, and you're never likely to see again, is in one category. Somebody interviewing you for national broadcast is in another. That is what I'm having a hard time fully understanding.
You're on a nationwide show. You're one of the handful of people most prominently in the national eye. You know that everything you say is going to be recorded, parsed, and examined. And still -- last week, not at a freshman mixer or in a Jaycees speech somewhere -- you happily reel off a claim that is impressive enough to get people's interest and admiration, and specific enough to be easily testable. [...]
This doesn't fit the normal model of "efficient" political or human truth-shaving. It was a lie that was totally unnecessary -- if he'd said he had run a five-hour marathon, we'd still know that he's physically very fit. And telling it in his current state of 24/7-scrutiny and prominence was either unbelievably naive ("no one will ever double-check this") or plain reckless ("I don't care if they do").
I know Republicans hate the comparison, but the media's treatment of Al Gore in 2000 is relevant. If Gore had been caught lying about a marathon time, it would have been a huge story precisely because the establishment had decided that the Democrat was a "serial exaggerator," and looked for evidence to reinforce the narrative.
Again, it's not just the exaggeration; it's the pattern of trying to deceive the public. Paul Krugman noted today the story of Rosie Ruiz who pretended to win the Boston Marathon in 1980, sneaking onto the course about a mile from the end.
"Obviously nobody cares how fast Mr. Ryan can run, and even his strange marathon misstatement wouldn't be worth talking about in isolation," Krugman explained. "What makes this incident so striking is, instead, the way it resonates with the essential Rosie-Ruizness of Mr. Ryan's whole political persona, which is built around big boasts about accomplishments he hasn't accomplished."
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Lyin Ryan: When you can't run on your own merit - YOU LIE.
Comrades,
You forget - "There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda"
1984 George Orwell
Spent yesterday at the President's speech in Boulder. My daughter is taking off two semesters to work for OFA (very proud, by the way). During the long, arduous wait, it became pretty evident that, though some in the crowd may disagree with the President's policies, if this election shifted focus from policy to integrity, Obama would win in a landslide. Even some of the Republicans who were trying sell their platform to the thousands waiting in line would just sheepishly look to their shoes when fact v. fiction became the topic. Obama touched on the lyin' Ryan and Romney team briefly in his speech, but not enough for the people there. He really needs to call them out–just blast them–because, what would their response be....They can't go all Bush-like, say, "Ah Shucks, I didn't mean that." Apparently, many in the Boulder crowd felt Obama is too nice and needs to really jump all over the R&R team. If Rachel Maddow would join the campaign as, say, press secretary, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, too :) (sorry for the gratuitious third person plug) :)
They broadcast the Obama speech's here when was in iowa a few weeks ago , he nailed the gop to the floor , on policy and not being honest , if those speeches were broadcast in full nationally , most voters , and the talking heads , would all be singing different tunes imo , but all you get is a little blip sound bight in the national news , that adds up to nothing
It is sept now , and the media are going to be forced to show what each candidate is really saying , hopefully by oct this will result in R&R becoming toast
Thanks for sharing your experience
Paul Ryan: Can't Run on the Truth AND Can't Truth About the Run!
And, your point is? O & B do not know, they look (eye contact & body language to their "czars/czarinas"), media microphones, speech tele-promptors and, well, they lie for them!
Teabag alert!
And your point is? O&B do not know ... so they use eye contact & body language (O's narcissistic body language) to their puppets, czars/czarinas & lie via media microphones (that B does not know media has) and feed via teleprompter (speech writers/editors). Lies that "better" them, nonetheless!
How can body language be narcissistic? What is that like masturbation or something? Do you even know what the word "narcissistic" means???
Name a lie the president has told. If you are going to play the red herring at least play it well, man.
Lyin' Ryan just can't help himself. Even when it's meaningless he lies. When it's important he goes all out. I know my conservative friends say "They all do it" but this false equivalency by the MSM has got to be stopped. Rachel can't end it herself but she can help if she pounds on it at every opportunity
We all may stretch the truth at times and out right lie at other times. This usually due to hubris or to protect ourselves, but one of the symptoms of a pathological liar is that he lies for no reason. The first President I voted for was D. Eisenhower. I still remember when he went on national radio to apologize to the nation for lying about the U2 flight. I was devastated. DOES ANYONE THINK THAT WOULD HAPPEN TODAY?
I'm so aware of the lies I've told in my time, and how many I've told. But more important in my mind is how many times I've repeated them, and to whom.
And this particular boast does not sound like an orphan. In fact, it reads like an oft-repeated spiel that needs to be remembered (see A. Rand quote above).
I'm waiting for X number of people to realize that their 15 minutes are at hand.
I like the "Rosie-Ruizness," comparison because in both there is such a lack of integrity and ignorance of what it really takes to be a winner, whether in a marathon or in a race to be co-leader of the free world.
The Obama acceptance speech should be as clear a contrast to the Republicans as possible. List the advancements for women and the blowback from the right. List the change in numbers of employment from the beginning to now. Show the graphs. Tell the world that he is flattered that they call the new health care laws “Obamacare.” It is a legacy he will celebrate for decades. Start a chant in the convention hall of “WE built that!” The Hoover Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Internet: WE built that! The Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the National Highway System: WE built that! Millions of cars and trucks and tractors on the roads. Factories, skyscrapers, railroads, farms, and stores: WE built that! We are proud of our entrepreneurs, our innovators, our inventors, our business owners and we are proud to have a system where they can profit and benefit from their ideas. But these same great people go nowhere without the greatness of the engineers, secretaries, factory workers, builders, office staff, and countless other American workers implementing the ideas. They go nowhere without the support of the American taxpayer who helps them through government programs. America can rightly look at any business and in some fundamentally truthful way proudly say: WE BUILT THAT!
I've known one person in my life who was a diagnosed, pathological liar. He lied about absolutely everything, no matter what. Paul Ryan fits the same profile. His extreme attitudes have scared me from day one, but this is a whole new dimension. Were he to be elected, we would not be able to trust one single thing he said. The man doesn't need to be elected; he'd be a danger to himself and to our entire country. But he does need one thing -- he needs psychiatric help.
But how will it play. Any mention of it will be met with howls of "those nasty Dem's are attacking and not my policies". And the cute boy really didn't mean it.
What is truly another example of the lies they tell won't necessarily convince those who believe the lies that they are lying.
When dealing with people who deny facts and redefine reality to fit into their narrative, it can be hard to break through those stuck in that alternate universe. Think cult deprogramming. And pointing out the lies on even the trivial level tends to create a backlash since those caught up in those lies will take it as a personnel insult to them.
I remember the right wing bobbleheads going nuts because the "liberal media" was picking on Romney for ganging up on and cutting the hair of an alleged "gay", but giving Obama a skate on marijuana usage. Here's what really matters... What Romney and his merry band of homophobes did was, in many locales throughout the US, a felony assault. Weed usage is, at best, nothing more than a misdemeanor crime, unless while smoking said weed he was also selling kilos of the @!$%#. Bottom line...If me, sans silver spoon, and a group of my friends, equally spoonless, had done what Romney did, we would have been serving jail time. He's lucky he got off with just being chastised by the media....
Bottom line= there's going to be a vote.
Funny thing about running: it's a sport you can be part of, regardless of socioeconomic standing. In other words, a lot of us 99% can take part, and do.
And it has legs, like no story I've recently seen. No pun intended.
Oddly enough, if you will permit the arcane athletic shoe reference, is that the converse of Mr. Ryan's hubris was Jimmy Carter's lamentable Rose Ruiz Garden strategy -- how to run without anybody seeing you.
Speaking of sitting around telling tall tales, was it just me, or did the right-wing convention start sounding like the Monty Python "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch?
For an inveterate liar, Ryan is really, really bad at it. Who the hell confuses their brother's accomplishments with their own? "I'll never forget the time I nailed the head cheerleader - oh, wait, that was my brother." "I was wounded in Afghanistan, no, I misspeak, that was my brother", "One of my proudest accomplishments was getting 800s on my math and verbal SAT's - uh, hang on, that wasn't me but my brother - sorry, I'm just confusing us ALL the time." That's such an unbelievable excuse, it's a bald lie, and downright insulting to boot.
Gore did not fib at all, but the perception of exaggeration arguably doomed his candidacy. I don't know if Romney and Ryan have actually told the truth about anything significant yet, and they are nonetheless running neck and neck with Obama and Biden. It's a national disgrace.
Anyone who thinks that, as of November 7, Romney-Ryan will suddenly reliably tell the truth is delusional. If they can't even tell the truth when the facts can be checked, how can they ever be trusted to tell the truth when the facts can't be confirmed?
To me Ryan is an appalling human being and a very bad example of a man! Lyin Ryan and his #1 Cheerleader Mit Rob-me are both very accomplished lairs, and as we all know it takes many years of practice to become an accomplished anything! They have it down to an Art Form! He reminds me of someone we have all known at one point or another in our lives! The person, that no matter how good you do or how much you have, they have always no matter what it is, have done you one better! Spoiled Brats that have never had to own up to any wrong they have ever done, because they lied to get out of it!
I also don't understand how the people in the Republican party can just sit there and believe all the BS that comes out of their mouths!
I truly believe it is all racially motivated when people would vote against their own interest just to get the Black Man out of office! This President, My President has done everything in his power to get things done, but when you have a do nothing Congress that will vote against anything good just because, well to me that is very Un-American, and they have the nerve to call themselves Patriots! I call them Traitors!!
Why are we not demanding his resigation? Anyone who can stand in front of the American public and blatantly
lie and mislead should not be in public office – presidential or
otherwise. What does this show of Romney’s
character to have picked someone who is so bent on getting to the top he’s
willing to twist the truth to such an extent? We need to stop him now
before he’s able to do more harm. I get
an image of Hitler who deceived an entire nation which led to the biggest war
in history. Somehow I think Ryan has the
same scruples as Hitler and he won’t stop until he has won. So let’s call for his resignation and demand
that Romney choose someone who can be trusted in the Whitehouse (OK, as much as
a politician can be trusted ;) ) Get this guy out of politics so he can never
lead again.
The Big Lie (German: Große Lüge) is a propaganda technique.
The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book “Mein
Kampf,” about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would
believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so
infamously."
In 1941, Goebbels quoted Hitler:
“The English follow the principle that when one lies, one
should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of
looking ridiculous.[2]
Joseph Goebbels, 12 January 1941, in “Die Zeit ohne
Beispie”l ("Aus Churchills
Lügenfabrik" translated from Churchill's “Lie Factory.
“in the big lie there is always a certain force of
credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily
corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or
voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more
readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves
often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to
large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate
colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the
impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove
this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and
waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For
the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been
nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all
who conspire together in the art of lying.”
—Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X”
George Orwell's novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” refers to the
Big Lie theory on several occasions. For example:
"The key-word here is “blackwhite”. Like so many
Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to
an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in
contradiction of the plain facts."
Definition of “doublethink”: "To tell deliberate lies
while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become
inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from
oblivion for just so long as it is needed...."
Many people, too many unfortunately, dismiss charges of Ryan lying about Medicare/GM plant/his "budget" balancing as "Well, of course Democrats are going to say such thing!" and not pay the facts of the matter.
Potentially, Ryan's lying about his marathon time, however, is a completely different story. Everybody knows someone who always has to be just that much better than everyone else in all that they do. But what is more important, those people know that person is lying, even if they don't call him on it. What they also don't do is trust him.
Which can be fatal for a politician...
Paul Ryan is a cronic Liar, he's a politician and he is a Christian Fundy... bad combo...