Paul Ryan's marathon

RoJo:

1) I read the Slate link about Biden's dishonesty that you provided. You are right - it is VERY troubling.

2) It is incomprehensible to me - and very disappointing - that you are unwilling to acknowledge that Ryan clearly lied DELIBERATELY about his marathoning. The full context from the interview can leave no other conclusion.

3) A significant difference between these two dishonest VP wannabes is that the Republicans are closely tied to Ryan's economic ideas - he is continually cited as the intellectual force in the party/campaign. It seems clear that a good many Republicans have seen Ryan (whose integrity is now very much in question) as the main reason to support the ticket. No one - NO ONE - suggests that about Biden.

I was born and grew up in Leadville. There are 12 fourteeners within 15 miles of the house I grew up in-another 7 within an hour's drive.

Lincoln, Democrat, and Bross can go all three in one day.

Belford, Oxford one day-add Missouri if you are an iron man. I don't see Ryan doing that.

Huron-I've never climbed-it doesn't lend itself to a group climb geographically unless you did some kind of iron man trek off of La Plata-or paired it with Missouri. For someone like Ryan, it's a day by itself.

Harvard Columbia can go in one day-but it's tough-not quite iron man level, but still more than Ryan could likely do.

Holy Cross, Elbert, Massive and La Plata are all one day each unless you are exceptional. I did Elbert/Massive in one day as a 20 year old-damn near killed me-and I REALLY was in 2:50ish marathon shape at the time.

Sherman is a cake walk-could be appended to something, but the east approach isn't close to anything else short, and the west approach is only close to Elbert/Massive/LaPlata-which are pretty meaty climbs.

Yale and Princeton each require their own day.

Antero is a day, Tabuache and Shavano can go the same day.

Thus, if Ryan vacationed in sunny Leadville, he could reasonably be expected to be able to climb 19 fourteeners if he spent 15 days doing nothing but climb-no travel, no days off. And Leadville is about the best base for such a trip-an Alamosa vacation will put you in proximity to 9 peaks, Aspen 6, Lake City 6, Silverton 5, Telluride 3. Denver gets you close to Evans, Longs, Grays and Torreys, C. Springs gets you close to Pikes.

Colorado is a big state-Leadville is 2 hours from Denver-Alamosa is 4, Aspen is 3.5 in summer, Lake City is 5, Silverton is 8 and Telluride is 9. He couldn't have just jetted in for a weekend for these climbs-they are spread out.

I think he's full of it. I've lived in Colorado all my life-48 years-and am a fairly avid climber-and I've barely got 40 peaks. Maybe next week I'll do Huron-this controversy has my narcisism fired up.

I still think my original assertion that most people will view this one way or the other based on their party affiliation was accurate.I mean the vitriol people have directed at me on this thread show that people don't want to hear anything against their view point.Did he lie? He very possibly did.Libs and independents will think he lied. Repubs will want to believe he got a digit messed up.All I was pointing out was that it is possible that he got 2:50s and 3:50s mixed up and people go nuts and say I'm condoning lies when I'm normally all against them.Yet these same people aren't going nuts over the fact that Biden's whole 1988 stump speech was a lie. Again, it all proves my point that people are totally clouded by their party affiliation - that's why most candidates go to the middle in the general and try to pick up the independents.On another point - do I think here is a bias in the media to come down on Republicans hard? Absolutely.I mean the way this story was reported by the AP and other outlets is misleading. They are all saying that Ryan said he didn't do it after being caught by Runners World.

The AP wrote:

The vice presidential hopeful acknowledged Saturday he had misstated his marathon time by more than an hour. He released a statement correcting the record after Runner's World magazine found evidence he had completed one marathon and finished in just over four hours.

The Blaze stated "Paul Ryan Syas He Misstated Marathon Claim After Runner's World Calls Him Out."

That's not what happened at all.

What happeneds is someone hear the interview and posted about it on LetsRun. Runnersworld saw that and said, "Did he really do that? If so, he's the fastest presidential candidate ever?" They didn't call him out - they emailed the campaign for verification.

The campaign wrote back and Runnersworld the 4:01 marathon - again after Paul Ryan's campaign told them and others what marathon he thought he ran. He thought he ran the 1991 Grandma's marathon. In reality, he ran the 1990 grandma's marathon ( no one is flipping out about that 1 digit he messed up there are they?).

But these outlets make it think like he was caught and then confessed. In reality, no one had any record of any marathon for him, he told them what he ran and the press mis-reports the order of events. It's not a big, big deal, but if you don't think the media is biased your aren't very smart.

Sadly, I don't disagree. A moderate amount of integrity should be a requirement for public office. Honesty should transcend political views. A liar is a liar, regardless of party affiliation. We should not select politicians who tell white lies. Pretty much all of the political class do it-when it's the opposite party-they are no good-when it's our own party, it's "they mispoke" or were taken out of context.

Occupational hazard (or perhaps requirement) for the SOBs, I suspect.

[quote]rojo wrote:

I still think my original assertion that most people will view this one way or the other based on their party affiliation was accurate.

[quote]

RoJo:

A short time ago I sent this reply to you:

[RoJo:

1) I read the Slate link about Biden's dishonesty that you provided. You are right - it is VERY troubling.

2) It is incomprehensible to me - and very disappointing - that you are unwilling to acknowledge that Ryan clearly lied DELIBERATELY about his marathoning. The full context from the interview can leave no other conclusion.

3) A significant difference between these two dishonest VP wannabes is that the Republicans are closely tied to Ryan's economic ideas - he is continually cited as the intellectual force in the party/campaign. It seems clear that a good many Republicans have seen Ryan (whose integrity is now very much in question) as the main reason to support the ticket. No one - NO ONE - suggests that about Biden.]

I should have added a 4th point: Biden's known dishonesty was well over 20 years ago, and chances are his opponents have been on the alert to catch him in more recent lies - and have cited none. Ryan's dishonesty is current. His lying about his marathoning is self-evident and his clear intellectual dishonesty in his Convention speech - which you yourself acknowledged troubled you - seems indefensible, especially from a proud Eagle Scout straight-shooter.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4785636&page=23#ixzz25NMVXFe5

That's what I'm talking about...it's a very large undertaking.

Doable, but you have to be pretty dedicated to get up to 40. Not to mention, being fast helps, and this dude really wasn't much in that regard. And then coming from out of state...no acclimitization.

I call BS.

Thread back up.

Wow Rojo, you're really drinking the "liberal media" bias Kool-Aid aren't you.

The idea that the media has a liberal bias is something that conservatives have cooked up because they look awful when the facts are reported.

The Biden stuff is bothersome. But I don't know why you'd ever expect people to spend much time talking about 30 year old lies in a thread about a current event. That's just strange.

Furthermore, Biden had to end his campaign because of the lies. It's not like people didn't care. Democrats cared enough then to force him out of the race.

Tell you what: if Ryan can go 30 years without another lying scandal, I'll give him a pass--much like most people now give Biden a pass.

uncle rico wrote:

Wow Rojo, you're really drinking the "liberal media" bias Kool-Aid aren't you.

The idea that the media has a liberal bias is something that conservatives have cooked up because they look awful when the facts are reported.

Rojo doesn't have to drink any Kool-Aid. He and wejo were contaminated by the GOP brain toxins when they were just an itch in daddy's crotch:

Rojo, I'll agree with you that the media are biased. We live in a "gotcha" world where all eyes focus on the outrage of the week--or of the day. Fox and MSNBC do this. (I watch them both, flipping back and forth between then.) CNN has its "keeping 'em honest" segment and I do think that Anderson Cooper tries to pressure politicians from both sides; nevertheless, he has a fundamentally progressive bias, much as he tries to both sides honest.

In this case, the gotcha is going against a big-name Republican. It was inevitable that SOMETHING about Ryan would come out and call attention to itself--or rather, find attention called to it by folks on the Left. This is because he was being viewed as a kind of redeemer-figure, one whose addition to the Presidential ticket had suddenly animate BOTH sides. Because his politics are clear.

I'm an independent. My father was a delegate for McGovern in '72, and I generally support progressive causes, but I'm also a big fan of Dave Ramsey, the right-of-center, explicitly Christian talk-show financial advisor whose only rule, basically, is "Don't spend what you don't have."

So although this might surprise my liberal friends, I was willing to give Ryan's approach the benefit of the doubt--for a moment.

But not for long. And the same part of me that likes Dave Ramsey's "face the facts, then get it done" approach to personal finance is the part that was offended by what seems like a clear and remarkably petty (but therefore usefully revealing) example of character failing in Ryan's lie about his marathon time.

I don't expect my politicians to be gods. But with him, in the matter of athletic achievement, from a guy who STAKES HIS ENTIRE REPUTATION ON HIS ABILITY TO THINK CLEARLY AND TALK ACCURATELY ABOUT NUMBERS (i.e., the Federal budget), I'm shocked by this particular faux pas.

My attitude is: If he lies (or, to use less aggressive language, flagrantly exaggerates) about something this relatively trivial in the larger scheme of things, and yet something that any competitive athlete would NOT lie about, what other problems are liable to crop up were he elected?

I'm not surprised that liberal journalists are jumping all over this. But even though they are, and even though I'm willing to discount them in the mass, there's a problem here.

I should add that I realize you think he didn't deliberately lied, just mistakenly subtracted an hour from hit time. My point is: He's supposed to be a numbers guy. He's also supposed to be a competitive athlete. If he really just made a careless mistake of this magnatude--well, do we want our numbers-guy budget-redeemer to be a guy who makes big, careless mistakes with numbers?

Facts always tend to have a liberal bias. This is why conservatives are anti-science, anti-education and anti-media. Global warming is a lie, evolution "may be" a lie, a fertilized egg is a baby, homosexuality is just a lifestyle choice, Saddam had WMD, billionaires create the most jobs, and on and on it goes. Anything who brings facts into the debate is an America-hating socialist.

He didn't just miss on a digit, though. He followed up with saying "yeah, I was fast." Nobody would say that about a 3:50. Come on.... you know this.

Lying, whether it comes from the left or the right, is something we need to call out. The only way all this stops is if we hold politicians to a higher standard. By letting Ryan get away with lying about his marathon time you become part of the problem.

MSNBC just reported that Obama ran a 1:45 800 in college while chain-smoking. But he's half-Kenyan so there's really no reason to fact-check that one.

Rojo,

No vitriol has been directed towards you, at least mention an example of the said vitriol. The biggest problem was that you tried to qualify it by saying it depends on the side you are on and that was not your business at all. That is where you lost your neutrality and baffled many of us, a lie is a lie is a lie and I at least feel it is not your job to defend other peoples lies, they lied for their own sake not yours, but, that is your choice, It was a bit disingenuous because for one you are known for fighting for truth in athletics. As I said, this an athletics forum, the Biden plagiarism claim will not get much traction here.

Again, you have been known for better insight into matters, Listen/read the whole Paul Ryan interview about the marathon, he implies that he has run more than one marathon. Come to think of it, if you have run one marathon then that is your personal best and it easy to say I have run one marathon and this is the time, instead of saying my best is and saying you no longer run marathons because of back injury. He was very specific in his answer. I bet he does not run 10 miles as he says and this is based on the number of lies that he has said in the past two weeks.

I agree with you on one thing,there is bias in the media, when I read Huffington's Post I know what I am getting. When I watch fox news i know what i am getting.

Remember this? http://www.letsrun.com/whyvotebush.php

If there's one thing about Mitt, it's that he's a man of conviction! Just don't ask him about any position he's held over the last 25 years!

The truth is that the BroJo's are, to put it politely, pretty dumb when it comes to the state of the country. That doesn't make their website any less useful. It just means that they should shut up about things they clearly do not understand.

Just to correct, my understanding is that LetsRun brought up the interview and started doing some digging/speculating, Runners World picked it up and confirmed the Grandma's result and then The New Yorker confirmed with the campaign and got the quote from Ryan that he lied.

The New Yorker should really be getting more credit along with LetsRun

Also, I've taught freshmen at SEC schools that have a better grasp of rhetoric than WeJo. His entire "essay" breaks down to "I know George Bush personally, and he's a good man." I'm not sure how much Cornell cost when WeJo attended, but I think it's safe to say he didn't get his money's worth.

Of course, there was no mea culpa on this website in 2008 when the financial sector crashed, or when the housing sector crashed, or when Katrina destroyed a major American city. There wasn't a peep. It goes without saying that Letsrun provides an incredible service to the running community and is one of my favorite websites. But the BroJos should stick to covering running and save the political prognostications to people with an actual track record--like Paul Krugman, who's entire oeuvre is in direct opposition to WeJo's "thoughts,"--and who turned out to be entirely correct on every point.