7 years ago
09/03/2012 12:26pm CDT
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.
