Brilliant Douthat deconstruction of Paul Ryan.
It confirms the following: "Saving Paul Ryan" (NYT, 4/11/18) is an exercise in futility, Sulzberger is not Spielberg, this is not the invasion of Normandy, Paul Ryan is not a soldier, much less an incidental hero, and the existential threat to the Republic comes from the fascists within.
The Times reported that it was Rosenstein who jumped the shark in the Southern District. The Rosenstein-Mueller raid has irreversibly weakened The Social Contract.
And for what? A normally trivial civil matter in order to take out a duly elected president and satisfy the raging anti-Trumpist prepubescent mindset.
Conversely, ponder the hundreds of millions in bribes to Clinton, their nexus to her feloniously deleted 33K emails, & all the Clinton offices that were not raided…
"Saving Paul Ryan"??? Please.
2
Actually, Mr. Ryan is a coward. He let Trump run unfettered because it left him in power. Ultimately, he quit rather than fight for the soul of his party. History will be unkind.
28
I note your "Ryan-of-the-imagination of liberals as "the most sinister of far-right operators, part fanatic and part huckster — a Lyle Lanley with “Atlas Shrugged” in his back pocket, playing everyone for suckers while he marched the country into a libertarian dystopia."
Correct. Thank you!
9
Paul Ryan is a Kempist? Back when Kemp was active I saw him described as the leading intellectual in the Republican Party. This was both true and a condemnation of a Party bankrupt of ideas even then.
9
Paul Ryan will be rightly remembered as the House Speaker who in the service of attempting to execute a mean spirited, backward agenda allowed 45 to run amok attacking democratic institutions such as the Justice Dept, a free press and the rule o
14
Well said. Ryan had the vision of a blind man and could not conceive policies that would improve the lives of average Americans. His and Trump's effort to repeal Obamacare failed because it was an empty partisan rallying cry, with no concept how to improve healthcare for most Americans. Their tax cut and the subsequent huge budget deficit was a thinly veiled heist for the rich. So that is what he can show as his accomplishment -- apart from a remarkable lack of spine in front of America's most corrupt and depraved president ever.
He was a like fish that swam well downstream in the main current of his party always following the path of least resistance, even when the waters got rather muddy and swampy. His departure is no loss for the American people, but it will also not impede the Republican Party's race to the bottom. It will be up to voters to clean up this mess.
9
Ryans 'expertise' is bogus. A flimflam man, selling budgets with magic asterisks. Just look through Krugman's writings.
Gone 2018, to make much more money. He will be back. More money, more power, same ego, same Ayn Rand narcissist.
13
How sad to consider that anyone ever considered Ryan as some sort of Wunderkind.
His total ignorance of what the electorate that "hired him" was astonishingly obvious when Ryan imploded at the notion of many young people paying into the health system helped pay for the elderly who clearly need more care.
It's no wonder that the 7 years the GOP had to come up with a "better health plan" crashed and burned - repeatedly !
He, like his GOP brethren - Work for the Wealthy and Big Business - PERIOD.
Even more sad, some GOPers showed a primitive spine, like Flake, only after signalling their retirement . . .
Expect no such sign of a spine from Ryan.
He will be spineless to the bitter end.
15
Or, like Paul Krugman, many of us merely thought that Ryan was a poorly informed, mathematically challenged party politician who first as Budget Chairman, then Speaker was wildly out of his depth.
13
Ryan is the classic empty suit — shiny on the outside, empty on the inside. His teenage boy affair with Ayn Rand — an overrated hack who deemed selfishness an asset — never ended because he never grew up to be an intellectual male. Indeed, despite being called the Republican intellectual, he was anything but.
He's the kind of fit-into-any-situation dullard who only appears bright but is actually a pretender when it comes to intellectual talent. His ethical/moral compass doesn't spin like Trump's does, but he's hardly a spokesperson for the average citizen, preferring the company of money...that's how he was raised. He thinks taxes are always too high and government too big...yet doesn't know why he believes this stuff.
But...he sees the Republican future in this year's election and the one to follow, and he doesn't want any part of it, like so many of his cohorts. So he's running away to Wisconsin. He can afford to retire, unlike many of the citizens he was supposed to represent. Good riddance.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
14
All of which is to say Ryan had no meaningful principles, if his only loyalty was to the party, since the party has unequivocally demonstrated it has no principles other than to retain power.
16
Is Paul Ryan, at base, just a money grubber like his tax cutting brethren? It seems that he is arguing with those brethren about when he will retire. Retire in January and his high-three as speaker gives him a nice boost for the rest of his life. Retire now as the other grubbers want and his high-three will include some of his pre-speaker pay. The difference is probably not much. But it is bucks that are not easily shot in the back woods of Wisconsin.
15
The only "policy" Ryan truly believed was comforting the comfortable (huge tax cuts for the rich) and afflicting the afflicted (huge cuts in the social safety net) and he was willing to go along with anything to achieve it.
20
The only commonality I see in the various political periods of Paul Ryan's career is his absolute adherence to the policies that support every effort to help the rich get richer. He has not supported efforts to improve access to medical care or insurance for all. He has not seemed interested in supporting access to public education or higher education or any other policy effort to make life a bit easier for the "not rich."
Paul Ryan is resigning after achieving the biggest tax windfall for the wealthy in history. I would guess he feels that he has been successful and that his work is done.
15
The Republican opinion makers are increasingly in fantasy land: in another column they fantasize about a Republican New deal *humpf* and RD here somehow sees virtue in Pauk Ryan. All and every Repugnant is a gofer for the billionaire class.
9
The first mistake was confusing Paul Ryan with a serious "policy wonk." During his tenure in the House, he has demonstrated beyond peradventure that he is nothing more than a sophomoric psuedo-intellectual with a bit of the gift of gab and a lot of the brown-noser in him. Genuine leadership isn't part of the skill set. He's the human chameleon - no offense to chameleons intended.
He's still young. He can go back to driving the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, reading the collected works of Ayn Rand and other "deep thinkers," and living on the public's dime - all the while castigating those around him as exploiters of "entitlements."
15
Ryan was and still is "an obsessive ideologue working tirelessly for Randian ends". Whether his continuing embrace of the widely discredited fraud of "trickle down" economics or his cynical and disingenuous promotion of social safety net "reform", his elitist political career always favored the interests of the 1%(or above), the donor class, big corporate interests, and the American equivalent of the moribund British aristocracy. Too bad. He would have made a great hereditary peer and Tory leader in the House of Lords.
Even worse, in the end to desperately seize the "historic moment" to fully adopt that lifelong personal agenda, Ryan unashamedly made his Faustian bargain with the amoral Trump, with the ensuing end of a political career. From the lauded Republican "boy wonder" into just another overreaching, spent, out of touch functionary.
7
At least Ryan has the sense to get out. The remaining GOP leadership and I mean those bunch who stood in the WH garden, after the tax bill, praising the fearless leader, like a third world dictator movie.
8
Despite the (deserved) ire expressed towards Paul Ryan in many of the prior-posted comments, I think Mr. Douthat does a good job explaining the forces that acted on Ryan's legislative career, especially given the context of the times in which he operated. Mr. Douthat's analysis of Mr. Ryan as ultimately "a party man" is fairly damning. In short, Mr. Ryan failed to be either an effective or transformative figure at a time when the lurching Republican Party needed one. To roast Ryan for being a Republican is not especially insightful and Mr. Krugman and others have done so already. To critique him for his failures as a representative and speaker from the point of view of someone generally on board with the agenda of Mr. Ryan, as Mr. Douthat has done, is more illustrative and helpful. A good column from the Times's conservative columnist.
4
I believe politically he was as flexible as a noodle and in the end stood for nearly nothing. No inspirational leadership here-just a flag blowing in the wind, without effort or purpose. A big blank.
10
Woo woo.
Paul Ryan was a professional con man, and many media folk - especially guys, vulnerable to the meritocracy halo (or mandorla) provided by things like P90X - were suckers. And still are.
7
There is no way to credit Paul Ryan with good intentions that may have existed once upon a time. His failure to defend the working man and then go on to support an unworthy corrupt president in the NOW speaks volumes for his lack of integrity. It is imperative that we never see him again in the political arena.
16
So, in other words, Paul Ryan was Republican all the way until Donald Trump's banana republicanism came into vogue. Too weak to stand up for any heartfelt principles, he will forever be associated with the massive trillion dollar deficits and enabling Trump.
Can we expect him to do anything but look forward to his next partisan position as lobbyist? He knows the swamp. He is one with the swamp.
11
Summary: Ryan is a follower, not a leader.
9
Paul Ryan is an intellectual lightweight void of any sense of humanity and obsessed with a vision of Ayn Rand. Good riddance.
15
Will the Jack Kemp idolatry ever end? He was an early and ardent proponent of supply-side economics, which started the process of income inequality which Trump and the Republican Congress just aggravated with their irresponsible tax slash. He deserves recognition only for his football career.
9
It's time to dispose of Paul Ryan, now that he has done his part to dismantle the despised government safety-net which redistributes wealth from the rich to those citizens in need of social security, medical care, and food. He's starved the government of the taxes it needs to pay for medicare and social security by ramming through tax 'reform'. How unseemly it would be for him to return to Congress after the election and immediately propose cuts to social security and medicare because of the increasing deficit which was his own work. Let a new mouthpiece for the 1% take over-- a new Koch brothers' puppet who can't be blamed for the empty government coffers. Douthart is too clever by half. Here's hoping that voters catch on to this scheme anyway.
4
The short version of this is "He was an empty suit."
And this was the "best" the GOP had to offer?
Krugman had it right when he named him years ago as a fraud and con man.
19
Since Paul Ryan is so enamored of fictional characters (Ayn Rand), maybe he should take note of what one fictional character said when asked "Why??!! when he gave his life to save his fellow crew members on the star ship Enterprise - Mr. Spock responded "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one." A pretty "Christian" thought coming from an alien (Vulcan).
5
They wanted him because he's fairly good looking, etc.
1
Calling Paul Ryan a Party man is a high-fiving insult. In the end, being a Party man for the RNC is everything that he ever dreamed of. Delivering the big donors' vision of laissez-faire economic theory to the cameras is his function.
Paul Ryan may be "rudderless" through the prism of serving society, but cutting taxes disproportionately for wealthy donors and PAC-funding corporations was the homerun that counted.
After hastening annual trillion-dollar deficits, Paul Ryan deflects all of his responsibility and instead doubles-down on his proud vision that entitlement reform is as inevitable as the arrival of Boomer-induced Medicare/Medicaid shortfalls.
During this 2018 campaign, Paul Ryan will remain completely non-specific about entitlement reform. That lack of candor will not flatter his legacy either.
2
"...there was no question that the more a policy reflected Ryan’s deepest preferences, the more Kempist it would be." One wonders just how clairvoyant Douthat thinks he is to assume he somehow knows the deepest yet unrevealed wished in Ryan's heart. Most rational people base their judgements of an individual upon their actual actions because words are cheap.
9
What can be said about a man who wants to cut the very programs that he benefited from after the death of his father. Ryan is typical of the type of person who employs the "what's good for me is bad for thee" mentality that is typical of today's GOP. So long as Trump was willing to sign those prescious tax cuts Ryan stood by him with a smile despite the offensive venom being leveled at Americans by Trump. This will be his legacy not that it matters because he's going to focus on building wealth now that his political career is over.
Historically we do better under Democratic presidents. Yet voters keep electing ryanlike candidates and then wonder why our country is a mess. Compromise shouldn't be a dirty word and any politician who believes otherwise isn't fit for office.
22
Always enjoy your writing. Rarely agree. This is one of those times.
4
Ross you are too nice to Paul Ryan. He doesn't have principles,never did in his whole career. It,his career,was always for Paul and principles were inconvenient. His best trait, a perfect phony,able to adapt to whatever was required for Paul. Good riddance.
12
He has a principle: that the country should model itself on a novel.
5
"Instead, he only knew how to work within the system, which because the system had turned into a madhouse meant that his career could only end where it ended this past week: in a record of failure on policy and principle that he chose for himself, believing — as party men always do — that there wasn’t any choice."
You nailed it!
The universal rationalization for all cowards!
6
I can't think of anyone who has disgusted me more, save for Mitch McConnell. Ryan had so many opportunities to intervene over the course of the last 2 years, to constrain the Trump-event, yet he squandered nearly all of those opportunities. In my fantasy world, the US launches him, Sarah Palin, and a few others into space so as to forcefully relocate them on Mars.
12
The truth is that anyone looking to Ryan for any sort of intellectual or philosophical center has been wasting their time. There's no there there.
19
Beautifully put. Alas.
3
Ryan is an ideologue and Koch Brother sock puppet. Prof. Krugman nailed his whole career. Nothing more need be said.
19
Hear, hear.
6
A not-to-bright man who likes trashy Ayn Rand novels.
11
President Rubio??? Yeeesh. Although...
2
One last spotlight moment for Ryan on this morning’s news shows. When asked about the President’s vile tweets about James Comey Ryan said, “I’m not going to try and help sell some books here” and “I don’t know the guy [Comey].”
Its NOT about selling books. Its about defending our democracy. Even after announcing his retirement, Ryan still can’t confront the President’s crass and destructive tweets that continue to undermine our democracy.
27
Correction: Ryan favored tax cuts and entitlement cuts, not tax reform and entitlement reform. He succeeded with the first and thankfully not with the latter. Medicare Part D was a welcome, unfunded gift to pharma donors. His sanctimony about budget deficits is now laughable. He may have supported some vague ideology about "minority outreach" , but had precisely zero ideas about how to help minorities. He will go down as a forgettable hack.
31
"the institutional G.O.P. during his years was like a bayou airboat with a fire in its propeller and several alligators wrestling midship.". A brilliant, and frighteningly apt description. I don't burst out laughing a lot these days while reading an op-ed, but I did reading this one.
3
Ryan might have had a more 'immigrant-welcoming' stance in words, but not in deeds . He always talks out of both sides of his mouth. A con-man's con. Besides, in this Trump era this subject is too toxic for the party, so GOP will keep kicking that can down the road...He figured that the only way to fulfill his 'Ayn Rand' fantasy agenda was to continue to blow up the deficit which will eventually allow for those 'entitlement' cuts he fought so hard to get. Never mind that he benefited from these same social programs . Such hypocrisy. The only reason he got the role of Speaker was his ability to bring in copious amounts of donor money, certainly not for the number of bills he came up with! (total: 3, including the naming of a post office)
17
And he walks away with all his campaign fund$ AND tax payer funded lifetime health insurance. Soon to make million$ as a lobbyist and/or PAC man. Or as another pseudo intellectual at a conservative "think" tank.
Yecch.
5
Mr. Ryan claims that he has no regrets. Just goes to show how vast is the human capacity for self delusion. Good thing he has a wealthy spouse, as well as a fat government pension, to fall back on in his early retirement.
16
You buried the obvious lead, Ross, or at the very least left your readers to infer the obvious: Ryan is a smirking and spineless enabler, wrapped in an empty suit. That's his sorry legacy. And of course all the yammering about those P90X workouts. Good riddance.
20
Emptiness! An empty diaper, an empty Frat hat (from a publicly-funded college), an empty shirt in an empty suit who spent his entire adult life slopping at the public trough (Well, his resume does include a real job driving the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile - the irony of which boggles the mind!). Ryan epitomizes The Swamp.
One fears that he'll parlay his oh-so-seriously-furrowed brow into a gig on Fox, becoming another member of the Republican Political Undead, like the chubby zombie, Newt.
26
" ... Mr. Ryan has been the most important voice on the right calling for a campaign message focused on the economy and taxes ... " (USA Today) But not in a good way: " ... Ryan has always been a con man — someone playing the part of Serious, Honest Conservative, but never doing a very good job of it. His budgets were always fraudulent in obvious ways, full of trillion-dollar magic asterisks and spectacular evasions ... " (Paul Krugman, NYTimes, May 2016) The most recent example is the huge budget deficit increase the Republicans created with corporate tax breaks, then Mr. Ryan's almost immediate plan to cut the deficit by cutting social programs.
8
Paul Ryan - qualified to start at your local used car dealership. Ready to lie, misinform and grift for profit.
20
Do not count him out. He is going to run for President and wishes not to be tarnished further by his proximity to the "Trump" Republicans.
4
Just look at his face in the photo, it says EVERYTHING.
14
Today, Paul Ryan was on Meet The Press complaining about identity politics by first saying it started on the left.
And Suprise! Suprise! Today, almost simultaneous to broadcast, The Wall Street Journal publishes "House Speaker Paul Ryan Warns Against ‘Identity Politics’" This is how Laura Meckler interpreted Ryan: ..(Ryan) said liberal politicians had crafted what he termed "identity politics", but that later conservatives did the same.
A few days ago, Mr Brooks was 'kind enough' to share conservative writer Jonah Goldberg's explanation of the use of identity politics: the left gained traction first, "but now the Trumpian right has decided to fight fire with fire."
It's obvious that one of 2018 campaign's messages will be "The Left Started It!" Paul Ryan, his fellow politicians, and their media friends have every intention of constructing a safe place for the ugly side of the Right's identity through their continued campaign of creating bogeymen and instigating fear of "them".
11
So Paul Krugman was right after all. Paul Ryan is and was a fraud as a policy wonk. Paul Ryan is and always was a Republican apparatchik dedicated to the Republican Party, not the USA. And now Mr. Douthat acknowledges was Paul Ryan never was - a leader. At best Paul Ryan is and was a dutiful employee of big money Republican donors.
16
If one is to define "party man" as a gutless political chameleon incapable of uttering what he truly thinks in fear of incurring the wrath of his boss, then Paul Ryan is the textbook definition.
9
Right you are Ross...
It most certainly did end for Paul Ryan " in a record of failure on policy and principle that he chose for himself"
7
Ryan was always the servant of the reactionaries who believe that workers security is anathema, and who now will be paid off with a cushy position at one of the Koch brother's "think" tanks.
9
As many comments have said.
Most of us always saw Ryan as an empty suit.
Someone stuck in the maturity level of a college sophomore enamored with Ayn Rand.
17
I will always remember the scene from his campaign for vice-president: he and his family were to be shown in a photo-op helping to clean the kitchen of a homeless shelter. But his entourage arrived at the scene long after the kitchen had been closed and already cleaned. The reporting, I believe on NBC nightly, showed him and his family washing already cleaned and put away pots and pans. Ryan's scrubbing of his cleaned pot seemed to me desperate, and that was the moment I saw Paul Ryan for what he was, and unfortunately was not in the wake of Donald Trump. He was a fraud, and he was not a man of any particular political legitimacy or courage. At the moment of the TMZ tape he could have altered the course of the election, but, like that other guy who said he couldn't look his 14 year old daughter in the eye and then eventually spit in her eye, he folded. A spineless coward.
16
I think in the end it became clear that Ryan was just not very bright.He was like Jake Gyllenhaal's budding businessman character in the movie Night Crawler.A con man can only go so far in the real world.
8
The interesting paradox of Paul Ryan is that, judging by his appearance, you get the impression that he thinks he is a good person. You get the feeling his wife and kids feel lucky that he's their hubby and daddy. And of course all the nonsense he and the GOP peddled about his being a wonk. In fact, he is an incredibly cruel and heartless politician who believes in some sort of economic predestination, as far as I can tell. While I'm sure we'll get someone just as heartless to replace him, it will be satisfying to see his vacuous, smug smile exit the stage for a while, or a lifetime.
13
Paul Ryan is a paid 'tool' of the Kock Brothers. They and their ilk have paid Ryan so much for their tax cuts that Ryan can afford to retire in style.
No bad for a welfare child of a single Mother who received taxpayer money to go to University. Sources of money that he has a now closed to others.
Sad so sad
11
We may have to give you this one, RD. We will chalk it to you being kind to fellow Catholics. And Conservatives. And Republicans.
3
Always fascinating to behold how the cogs turn in conservative minds.
It is utterly beyond Mr Douthat to see that Ryan was and is a fraud, not just a dreamer of crazy and malign policies.
8
I thought that this was one the better analysis.
4
All the words here used to describe Ryan: spineless, normal, measured, moderate, blah blah blah.
He was a grifter and a crook, in the employ of the dirtiest crooks on the planet, the Kochs, and their vile cohort. In their goal to rob and impoverish the American people and despoil the planet in service to their greed, Ryan was an amoral, nihilistic foot soldier who, through them, was promoted to lieutenant.
He served them well. And, now that his usefulness is over, Ryan can take his handsome payout and skulk elsewhere to do profitable damage where it may be found, in service to the highest bidder. That was and remains this empty, craven vessel's greatest gift.
8
Wow. Typical for NYT to paint Ryan as anything but a narcissistic, lying, misogynist, racist, anti-semitic and amoral republican that is the king of predatory capitalism and destruction of social safety nets. He was/is part of the machine and is truly a poster boy for PARTY OVER PEOPLE; WIN AT ALL COSTS. Can we ever stop calling social security, medicare and disability benefits entitlements since of course it is a government -maintained annuity program into which we all pay. The repubs are correct we are ENTITLED to a payout of OUR FUNDED benefits. Ryan and the rest of our politicians are just a corrupt bunch of crooks. Need to RESET! Good riddance Ryan and please take all the rest of them with you! VOTE! RESIST!
3
Say what you will about the rudderless Ryan, GOP conservatives consistently supported his basically unpopular fiscal policies; i.e. tax cuts for the rich and cuts in America's social programs that benefit the middle class.
What mystifies me is why Democratic congressional candidates ignore his record and fail to tar their GOP opponents for having unanimously supported such unpopular policies. Never in the history of American politics has so much ammunition been given to an opposition party only to see it used sparingly in their futile struggle for office.
5
Yep, no free will there, nothing remotely human to be said of him. A pawn, a snake oil salesman easy on the eyes. P Krugman said it all this last Friday: “the narrative required the character Ryan exist.”
5
Trump and the GOP’s lap dog with no ability for creative thought.
3
Ryan said something about not appearing in the Congress again. It didn't really sound like we would never see him run for office again. I expect to see him, in his next manifestation, as a candidate for president. By the time he tries to run the effects of his tax cut package will be fully evident to the voters. If the effects are as dire as predicted, all of the voodoo the Republicans have won't make him look good
3
"This is not to say that he lacked principles."
First, he is not dead. In fact, I would not be in the least bit surprised if he hopes that not being in the House when, inevitably, this White House comes completely unglued will make him the unifying presidential candidate in 2020.
Second, yes, he is without principles. If he were truly a deficit hawk, he would not have supported the policies he supported. If he were truly a patriot, he would have worked with his predecessor and the president at the time--not always agreeing, but at least being what he claimed to be: a leader.
Third, Mr. Douthat's fellow conservatives touted him as a man of learning, a party intellectual. If this is what constitutes a Republican intellectual, then the response is simple: there is no such thing.
25
I have to disagree. Mr Ryan is dead, where it counts, in his heart and in his soul. It must be horrible for him to deal with his inner demons. I'd leave government too, if I were him
Thousands of poor people suffering around the world. Bombed, hungry, ethnically cleansed. What was Mr. Ryan's response? Or more importantly his lack of response as "Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America".
Did he help the poor (the skeleton mommies and drug addicts) holding their dying babies, either here or abroad? Did he try to change the US foreign policy? Has he even been to the rurals of Appalachia, or to the inner cities, to see the real plight of poor Americans?
I'm sorry Mr. Ryan, I don't mean to insult you or your faith. I've stood or, or or rather sat, in the Cholera wards of Bangladesh. After all, I've been in a wheelchair for sixty-five years, as I worked my way through my non-disabled career. Those pretty bags of rice that say USAID on the side are not enough, not when you watch people starve and die of sickness and war everyday.
It's no comfort to know that US F-15s are screaming overhead. It might be if they were dropping food, medicine and other necessities. They're not, our ideas about helping people may not be just, but our methods are not the answer.
Think about it.
2
Countries like Denmark and Germany look pretty good to me.
They have better education for the working class. They train people for the trades and high-tech manufacturing.
Unions and management work together.
They don't have the poverty they have.
They have universal healthcare. The US is the richest industrial country on the planet GDP / capita and we have segments of the population with infant mortality rates worse than Botswana.
They consistently rank higher on the Forbes Best Countries for Business list.
After 35 years of trickle-down Reaganomics, we got an opioid crisis and the highest incarceration rate in the world.
We can pay for schools and get people educated and working and paying taxes or we can pay for welfare and prison.
Then there is abortion. That is the easiest one. Give women birth control and eliminate unwanted pregnancies.
Republicans like Douthat purposely divide America with their Ayn Rand and culture war philosophies and then pass tax cuts for the billionaires.
Deficits went up under Reagan and down under Clinton and Clinton had almost 50% more jobs than Reagan.
Deficits went WAY up under W Bush and gave us the Great Recession. Obama got us through the Great Recession and cut the deficit by 2/3 and got almost 400% more jobs than W Bush.
And this latest Republican tax cut will add $10 Trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. That is $67,000 per tax payer.
Some people never learn.
32
CORRECTION:
They don't have the poverty they have.
SHOULD BE:
Those countries don't have the poverty the US has.
3
There's a lot of truth in this article. And while not spelled out, it indicts Paul Ryan as a failure as surely as those other "images of Ryan" Mr. Douthat disagrees with.
Because to be a leader, one must lead. As Mr. Douthat has pointed-out, Ryan did none of that; he's just a follower who was cast in a leader's role. It's further proof of Paul Ryan's dimness that he accepted the job: he should have known he wasn't up to it.
15
Mr. Douthat is being very kind to Ryan. I could say that he is trying to preserve some type of grand legacy for Ryan, but Mr. Douthat even admits that Ryan was a failure. There is no legacy of success for Ryan. If Ryan is remembered in History at all, it will be for his ineptitude, incompetence, and unworkable ideas. The summation of his career should probably be given as: "Trump trumped him."
Having read many of the comments about this column, I have found that the comments provide a better description of Ryan that Mr. Douthat and Mr. Krugman provided the best analysis of Paul Ryan and his less than illustrious career.
Good riddance to him.
21
His SILENCE above all! Not standing up to Trump when called for, often choosing to keep a low profile in the aftermath of Trump's proclivity for inserting 'foot in mouth'. Poor leadership on the part of Ryan.
3
The Speakership of Congress was laid waste by Newt Gingrich.
2
Ryan backed a crotch-grabbing moron while pretending to be a good Catholic, family man. He is sophomoric, inexperienced in the real world, and an opportunistic coward. He is a man without a conscience. He passed 3 bills during his time in Congress, 1) named a Post Office in Janesville, WI, 2) changed taxes on arrows used by bow hunters, and 3) established a 3M presidential commission on evidence based policy making. WOW, and that made him Speaker of the House and one of the bright stars of the Republican Party. Doesn't say much for the party.
38
It appears to me that the observers, the journalists, are failing to report the subtle transformation in politics. And what is subtle today is about to become shocking tomorrow. The nomination of Trump in 2016 was a signal event.....the GOP is destroyed. Its dead. Lifeless. Powerless. DED. At that moment the curtain was drawn back and it became obvious......The RNC and the DNC are the two pillars stabilizing the OLD order...the status quo. One corporate entity, the DNC,Inc, providing a steady "liberal" interpretation of FDR Era govt policies.....while the other corporate entity, the RNC,Inc, offered a well rehearsed "conservative" opposition, an alternative approach to applying the very same FDR era government policies.
By 2001...it was obvious that the FDR rules were no longer effective....too much had changed in the world. Then in 2016, the once stabilizing pillar of the RNC collapsed....the Bush Family went turncoat and supported Hillary Clinton over its own supposed candidate, Donald Trump. Chaos ensued.....now the "liberal" base will abandon the DNC join with the huge disaffected other voters(mostly Trump supporters who see that Trump decieved them too)......and new Opposition Party will emerge and drag the DNC, screaming and kicking into the 21st Century.
1
I your dreams.
1
What? Another columnist jumping on the "Paul Ryan was never the god you thought he was" bandwagon. Sorry, but I never thought he was a god, so I am not the one who is disappointed. Seems to me it's all the political commentators, columnists and pundits who are.
16
Ryan has shown with every word he has ever publicly spoken and with any policy he has proposed that he is -- as the GOP has been since at least Eisenhower -- one giant balloon with the skin off.
His policies all are just the warmed-over trickle-down nonsense offered by every republican since "Raygun" first spouted it. These ideas offered by republicans were always offered as a means for shrinking the deficit, when EVERY TIME vastly expanding it.
Yet every time, the same people who have been sodomized by the GOP, somehow forget that fact when they bend over yet again at the next election.
10
The Republicans just don't get that taxation ad spending expands the economy by doing things that otherwise don't get done at all.
6
Actrually, Reagan picked up trickle down theory that was floated much earlier, in the early 1900’s when Income tax was new, and the wealthy were nervous. It was their invention, attempting to justify low taxes for the richest.
Will Rogers: ...”the money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes it will trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the bottom and the people at the top will have it before nightfall, anyhow.. Bit at least it will have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.”
1932.
2
Paul Ryan may be a Party man but the word I would use to describe him is feckless. He is all talk, bluster, and an empty suit who took advantage of what the government had to offer him, while glibly and gleefully targeting the government backed social safety nets for destruction, to further enrich the already wealthy. His ill-begotten "tax reform" is going to explode the deficit down the road (when he will no longer be around), and the burden of taxes will fall mainly on the poor and Middle Class. He however, is set for life with a secure pension provided at taxpayer expense.
Goodby and good riddance.
22
Yes, Ryan will be set for life with a taxpayer-funded secure pension that will be chump change when compared to the windfall he'll gain from his return to the Koch & friends-funded private sector.
3
The vapid "barely-leader" of an insufferably dogmatic "barely-party" espousing childish "barely-philosophy." What else could any expect?
11
"The mistake about Paul Ryan, the one that both friends and foes made over the years between his Obama-era ascent and his just-announced departure from the House speakership, was to imagine him as a potential protagonist for our politics, a lead actor in the drama of conservatism, a visionary or a villain poised to put his stamp upon the era.
This Ryan-of-the-imagination existed among conservatives who portrayed his budgetary blueprints as the G.O.P.’s answer to the New Deal, among centrist deficit hawks who looked to him to hash out their pined-for grand bargain, and among liberals for whom Ryan was the most sinister of far-right operators... "
More of Ross' nonsense, starting with the typical false statement, then building an entire "opinion" piece around it.
Ryan was not seen as the most sinister of the far-right by liberals, he was seen as a spineless coward who would do anything to get Grand Old Daddy's approval right up to the term of his maximum pension benefits.
He was only a leader in as much as a coward can lead cowards. He's not a hero, he's not a villain. He's the epitome of a party without conscience, but not because he is the one who made it so. He's a horse that tried to lead a rotten carrot.
7
You forgot to mention that Ryan is also a two-faced spineless weasel. As a young man he benefited from America's social safety net after his father died at a young age. He has since spent his adult life working to deprive others of these so called "entitlements" as he works tirelessly on behalf of the rich and connected.
19
We were always told that Paul Ryan was one of the really smart ones. But only an adolescent could think Ayn Rand's dystopian novel Atlas Shrugged, with its cardboard cutout characters and preposterous themes about "makers" and "takers" (with a bit of rough sex thrown in -- the fiercely independent Dagny Taggart taken from behind by Hank Reardon), was profound and some kind of blueprint for economic America. Ryan is weak. His policies were always about taking from the poor and middle classes so the rich could have more than they need. Now he'll take a fat job funded by the Koch brothers and pretend he did not destroy lives while he held positions of power.
19
Wow; a column by Douthat in which he avoids taking cheap potshots at dreaded Liberals!
If you agree with Douthat's portrayal of Ryan (which I partially do), this column elucidates more about the GOP as a party than it does about Ryan.
It demonstrates that for the past 20 post-Reagan years, the GOP hasn't been guided by any coherent set of core principles or values. Rather, it's been mostly a mush of anti-everything obstructionism (thanks to Newt Gingrich), hypocritically trying to appease the greedy One-Percenters, the narrow-minded Religious reactionaries, the rabidly Rightwing wackos, and the low-info Rust Belt Deplorables. This ragtag mob hasn't stood FOR anything; their only strategy has been to demonize any Liberal as unpatriotic, unAmerican, and unGodly.
How could any single person "lead" a directionless hydra like this?
In a normal political environment, Ryan had potential to have a long career as a perfectly average and innocuous politician. But he got sucked into the contradictory morass that the GOP has devolved into since Gingrich.
Regardless of whether or not he allowed himself (or perhaps even wanted) to get ensnared willingly, no one need feel sorry for his fate. He had many opportunities to speak out and use his leadership to stop the GOP's recklessness and spiteful cruelty. But he failed to do so, time and time again.
Just like his morally-bereft party, Ryan just worked to retain power, rather than working toward any cogent set of positive principles.
8
Paul Ryan has been on the government benefits and employment welfare dole ever since his father died when he was a teen. The only party that Ryan rightfully belongs to is the Welfare King Party.
Plus Ryan is not very bright. When questioned on poiicy details he deflects by jargon thus hiding his ignorance. The only party that aptly describes Ryan was the Know Nothing Party.
Paul Ryan is a glorified beaurocrat clerk scrivener. Ryan belongs in the Clerk Party.
14
Paul Ryan will be remembered as the man whose reach exceeded his grasp. He sought power. Power to change the way "the System" operates. The like the dog that chased the car....and actually caught the car......poor Ryan had no clue what to do.
He fell back on the ole hack recipe for political success in WashDC....another wasted opportunity. Now he leaves in disgrace. ... with a tax free pension....and Million Dollar Govt Health Care .... and he gets to keep his campaign money, tax free, of course.
4
I always thought Paul Ryan, the somewhat humorless policy wonk, was something of a joke, wedded to a philosophy fine-tuned during late-night college bull sessions (complete with a beer or two). OK, that's fine. But Ryan's agenda turns out to have been rife with hypocrisy and "flexibility", witness the great Trump/GOP tax and deficit scam. OK, I cry uncle, that's water over the dam. Unconscionable, though, as a supposedly impeccably principled leader, was and is his refusal to say or do anything about Trump's assault on American institutions and, beyond that, bedrock morality. As he spends "more time with his family" I hope there are some kitchen table discussions about fundamental issues of right and wrong, core values not influenced by party loyalty.
7
Looks like an ambitious opportunist to me. Cloaking him, however critically, in the clothes of party loyalty misses the verso: he saw the party as his necessary route to personal advancement. Good riddance to a dishonorable man.
5
Like all gastropods when they encounter salt they foam and retreat into their shells.
4
This is all to say Paul Ryan was never a leader despite how much that adjective was projected onto him.
1
Yes, Paul Ryan was a "party man," and I'll remember him for posing with an all-white collection of dozens of Congressional interns who were, of course, an apt picture of an almost entirely white GOP.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/upshot/dueling-congressional-intern-g...
It is also appropriate that Ryan's congressional seat is sought by fellow GOP'er Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist. How will we tell the difference?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/politics/randy-bryce-paul-nehlen.html
1
A disclaimer at the front should read;
"Caution. Reading this may cause dizziness."
1
The one thing Ryan has never had has been an ounce of compassion and empathy. He is Ayn Rand’s pathetic empty suit.
8
: Of all things, Ryan may be, he was mis-perceived as an economist. And, because economics has become mathematicised, most believed that Ryan knew the inner secrets of economics. (Ryan’s inclusion of the Russian-born novelist Ayn Rand as part of his economic thinking should have been a clue that Ryan’s economic prowess was no greater than average.)
An article that is running concurrently with this one “Does math make you smarter?” the author Manil Suri suggests that if an abstract (mathematical) rule is grounded in real-world experiences, then the ability to handle the concepts increase to 75%. Which might explain why the original papers of early economists had no mathematical expression in them and, might also explain the growth in “behavioral economics.”
Ryan suggested ideas which Republicans did not understand, and which Democrats did not believe but all believed may have been based upon complex economic thought grounded in esoteric mathematical equations which only Ryan understood.
I sympathize with Ryan, he knew that he was blowing smoke but hoped he’d never have the power to have to prove his ideas. Unfortunately, the Republican’s gained the power to legislate.
But Ryan may get the last laugh: Magicians, who are often charlatans, are hard to replace.
Did Ryan have principles? I suppose so, if by “principles” you mean a consistent set of beliefs. The problem is that Ryan’s beliefs were nothing but the mundane task list of someone who is implementing someone else’s vision without question, and then having seen it fail, was too dull to adjust.
The economic failures of GOP policies over the last 40 years should have sent Ryan back to his bookshelf, but they didn’t. GOP economic policy has been exposed as a zero-sum system that leads to increasing income inequality. It makes a few people rich but is bad for the majority, a fatal flaw in a democracy. Once the philosophy has failed, to continue to promote it is morally bankrupt, especially if the only way to do so requires adopting lying as the norm, as Ryan and the rest of the GOP leadership has done.
Merged together, Ryan and Trump are the perfect symbol of GOP moral failure: Trump is the mindless lizard-brain that seeks only self-gratification at the expense of all else. Ryan, the half-hearted intellectual, tried to harness the energy of Trump and his mindless mob to drive the GOP economic agenda, but lacking ideas of his own, Ryan had nowhere to turn when its failure became obvious.
6
Paul Ryan: A man without a spine, blowing with the wind like the auto dealer balloon man.
2
Ross, after reading this I believe you have led me to a true clear understanding of the Republican party of the last twenty or so years.
Readily defined as a group of hollow men strutting around in their empty suits, and led by other hollow men.
2
You have aptly described what Ryan was...the personification of a stuffed shirt.
2
If I could draw a little cartoon in this space, it would depict Ryan's head on a little rat body, leaping off of a listing, sinking ship..... which he himself had chewed a hole in, thereby accelerating the flow of water into the ship.
Into a taxpayer funded life boat with sails filled by the wind of Koch money.
Yes, Ryan is a party man: a party that is all about bait and switch the public on behalf of billionaires. Eventually, the con goes bad when people realize they have been robbed.
Ross, there is no way to put lipstick on this pig. May the rest of his ilk sink with the ship.
5
Paul Ryan represents the mediocrity of conservative thought. He really never learned from the failures of Reaganism (Voodoo Economics only leads to budget deficits). This is why he ardently participated in two more rounds of conservative deficit-mongering (under Bush II: tax cuts in a time of war) and under Trump (tax cuts and spending increases. Today's conservatives don't really have to analyze the objective reality of the economy (i.e. think). It doesn't matter what is out there, the policy prescription is always the same: the economy is in recession: tax cuts; the economy is growing: tax cuts; we are at war: tax cuts; we are in a second war: more tax cuts. Conservatism now is the sclerotic impulse of the mediocre mind, blindly serving the interests of a tiny elite.
4
One irony of this column is that, despite his attempt to distance himself from liberal critics of Paul Ryan, such as Paul Krugman and Charlie Pierce, the conservative Mr Douthat largely agrees with their assessment Ryan's career. Mr Krugman observes that Ryan's pose as a Randian fiscal hawk has been a sham all along; Mr Pierce characterizes Ryan as "Biggest. Fake. Ever." In this, Mr Douthat agrees.
1
Excellent article. You capture the essence of the man in a few words. Indeed, Ryan did not have the fire in his belly to move any real agendas. To begin with he had to be coaxed to take the job! To be successful it would seem to me you would have to really want the job. Thus everything that followed was half-hearted. He certainly did not have the strength to handle Trump. He always bowed to him even while he was the leader of a co-equal branch of government.
His only accomplishment, a tax bill for the GOP's biggest donors leaves the nation with a huge debt and will have to be fixed. It was a rush job that ended up half baked with appeal only to those who can afford Lear Jets.
But more than anything he failed the nation. He did not do his job. He became a staffer for Trump rather than rise to the task of being Speaker of the House. He was the wrong man at the wrong time for his brand of politics. He just could not govern and thus he failed us all.
2
Newt Gingrich remains the most reviled Congressional leader in recent history. Which is sad....for Mr. Gingrich, despite all his ugly personal life behaviors, actually did more positive influential, progressive action in DC than any other in recent times.....he was able to push thru unpopular legislation that has helped America....all while playing the adversarial role versus Bill Clinton and at the same time working with Bill Clinton....Since then, we the people have endured nothing but mindless, vacuous political rhetoric about how "i'm right and you're wrong"...while nothing, absolutely nothing changes. Paul Ryan, at first seemed like he would be the one to wrest control out of the hands of the myopic, power-mad Senate and back to Congress where it belongs....Instead, Ryan behaved more like a pawn of the regressive Bush Family that controls RNC corporate policy.
Evil Paul Ryan sees the writing on the wall. Trump will not be running in 2020 and since time heals all wounds he has his sights set on a presidential run with the aid of the Koch brothers and the Mercers.
3
Like all bureaucrats who rise through the ranks of any organization by bending in the wind regardless of which direction it blows, Mr.Ryan finally rose to his level of incompetence. No one will miss him when he is gone.
1
Really the end of sanity for Ryan and the Republican party was the ascent and acceptance of the Tea Party, which was always irrational and now seems like a quaint preview of the Trumpian movement. When you convince an aging John McCain to take on Sarah Palin as a running mate, you have lost it. None of the Tea Party hype made sense, but somehow the party just rolled over and handed over the keys. It appears Paul Ryan was one of them. While it has brought them 4 years of a crazy president, and 2 years controlling the entire government, one can only hope it will end in November 2018. The Republicans probably need a few years in the weeds to clean up their act. Even if you still let the Koch brothers run the show, you should at least hide that from the voters. If you want to lower taxes, maybe actually lower them across the board, not just for a few select donor groups and without punishing Blue State voters.
PS - IRS has finally released the new W-4s so in a few weeks you too can run Turbotax to see what the new tax law has brought you. Good luck to all !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
1
The most unsurmountable problem in this "so called democracy" that we live in is to be able to attain some kind of financial success, unless you were lucky to be born reach or inherit your capital through your aunt/uncle or be born a genius..which brings you other options a.k.a. financial frauds, crime, dirty dealings, gutter/gangster mentality, selling out for everything and anything, sorry for being cynical, but these facts s/b face straight on or let's just stop talking about democracy all together.
1
"This Ryan-of-the-imagination" was never "a diligent and policy-oriented champion" but a sham, lacking principle and policy details, whose math never added up. An actor, delivering gains for his 1% cronies, who now rides away with lifetime benefits, after endeavoring to damage the lives of so many Americans. "Obsessive ideologue working tirelessly for Randian ends" suits this ambitious empty suit perfectly. Please remove your rose-tinted glasses.
1
Paul Ryan is a "good boy", he did his sugar daddies the Koch Bros proud. A supply sider tax cutter, more like tax cutter for the rich and big corporations and the rest of us be damned. Entitlement reforms, he championed destroying public safety nets even though he will at least temporarily be living off them with his government pension and tax payer paid for health care for life. I am sure that the Kochs will handsomely reward him. Ryan was and is just a "taker" the kind he vocally demonized along with Rand.
1
Paul Ryan has attempted to prove once again that supply side economics works. Thanks for nothing, other than adding significantly to the budget deficit and the national debt of the United States. Two things members of the GOP have delivered well for the last 38 years.
3
When he announced his retirement, Ryan professed great pride in what Republicans in Congress had achieved under his leadership. He was grinning from ear to ear when he said it.
During the Obama presidency, Ryan vowed that reforming Social Security, replacing Obamacare, and reducing the federal deficit would be top priorities of a Republican majority in Congress under a Republican President. When the electorate handed Republicans the reigns of power, Ryan failed to deliver on these promises, yet he conveniently ignores any reckoning with these broken promises while basking in the glow of his own self-congratulation.
Perhaps Douthat can explain Ryan's seemingly infinite capacity for self-delusion -- or explain it away as the natural disposition of a Republican party loyalist.
3
I think we need to stop talking about Paul Ryan as though he has a terminal disease that will take him to the hereafter at the end of this term. He's leaving Congress, but I doubt that's the last we are going to here from him. He's still a relatively young man. Young enough to bide his time just long enough for emotions regarding him to cool down and then he'll be back. Perhaps he'll just become a lobbyist. But I suspect he'll be spending a lot of time in Ohio and New Hampshire. If not for 2020 then for 2024. There will be a lot of new voters then and they won't know him like we do.
2
An excellent argument advancing that idea that political parties, or what they evolved into, are doing substantial harm to our ability to self-govern. Here is a profile of a man that is not a leader but a dutiful follower of a cabal of synchophants and nihilists, and worst of all he'll never be held accountable for his poor leadership characteristics and bad policy making.
I remain hopeful each day that Americans will recognize that the first thing we need to begin our recovery is to admit that political parties are the problem.
They are not included in the Constitution, and yet they've grabbed hold of our narrative. They limit ballot access, control primaries, restrict election participation, gerrymander districts, hijack parliamentary powers in Congress and enthrall our President into a state of babbling incoherence.
Time to send them back to the realm of social clubs where they can influence but not control our governing systems.
2
Boehner was chased out of office by the Tea Party. The main problem was that one could not have Democrat participate in legislation. With Obama care it was the Republicans who refused to participate. Even as Obama signed onto a insurer friendly market based solution. Medicaid would be expanded and hospital waiting rooms would be cleared of the non emergent uninsured. But the kicker was taxes were raised on rich people. So Ryan takes over as speaker and is more willing to take the Tea Party point of view. Obama was a black man and the ACA was Socialism. Horror of horrors. The Republicans would shut the gov't down to stop big gov't encroachment. Now we have huge tax cuts to corporations and individuals with the richest getting 80% of the cut. And lo and behold there was a deal and 1.5 trillion was added to the national debt. The borrow and spend Republicans were in charge.
1
This is one of the best descriptions of Paul Ryan that I have read. He was essentially a shape-shifter within the boundaries of the GOP, never one to mold the party into something different than what it already was at any given time. Perhaps it has been the lack of true leaders, true statesmen over the past several decades that caused us (especially the media) to latch onto Paul Ryan as a visionary policy leader. What does that say about us?
9
Why does the idea that he is an ideologue who is focused on cutting taxes for rich people and redistributing income and wealth upwards seem somehow incompatible with the idea that he is a party man through and through?
It seems to me that the Republican party is dominated by men (in the literal sense of that word) who are ideologues motivated by the desire to cut taxes for rich people and redistribute income and wealth upwards. So he's both a party man and an ideologue (and those things are now synonyms).
And if you doubt this claim, please point to all the legislative achievements of unified Republican government in this Congress. There is one, and only one; and guess what it does.
16
Mr. Douthat, is this your definition of your ultimate "party" type of guy?
Your definition for pragmatism in politics in today's GOP?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-le...
Now, I well aware that these are just off the cuff musings of the leadership of the GOP in the House, but it is also illustrative of the type of thinking that was happening behind the scenes and how they ended up responding to Trump publicly.
If taken at face value, clearly these men do not think very kindly of Trump, yet they were still willing to do his bidding, up to and including becoming an enabler of Trumpism, especially if yielded their prized tax cuts.
Mr. Ryan is demanding loyalty to what he sees as a higher ideal, his definition of the GOP, even if he means that Trump may be on Putin's payroll.
It also explains why Mr. Ryan would allow Devin Nunes to run wild in order to manipulate the end goals of his committee.
Ryan wanted to protect his variation of the GOP at all costs, even if he had to ignore his own inner voice.
Worst of all, Kevin McCarthy, yet another Trump enabler that was caught on tape, is Ryan's definition of a replacement.
There is nothing redeemable about Paul Ryan, the man, or Paul Ryan, the Speaker, but fear not Mr. Douthat, there are always cushy lobbying jobs for just this type of person.
14
The whole cowardly lot of them are fawning to the world's most spoiled bully.
1
This is probably the most believable take on Ryan that I've read. While Krugman's analyses of Ryan's policy ideas have always been spot-on, his analysis of Ryan's motivation has always seemed to run afoul of something like Hanlon's Razor for me, and I think Ross has nailed it. Ryan has always struck me as someone who genuinely believed in his own policy ideas, rather than a true con man, but he also never seemed to understand them well enough to deserve to be called policy wonk. The party loyalist shoe, in contrast, definitely fits.
10
Paul Ryan.
No profile in courage there.
13
Paul Ryan : “ entitlement” reformer who will retire at 49 with full benefits.
The man in a nutshell.
37
The “good soldier” image Douthat is trying to promote lacks credibility and is in sharp contrast with Ryan’s highly ambitious and opportunistic behavior everybody has been able to observe over the years.
9
Paul Ryan perfectly fits Gertrude Stein's famous description of Oakland:
There's not there there.
He's Howdy Doodie permanently frozen in sophomore time.
Policy genius? No. A narrowly educated man without real world experience and half-baked, nonsensical ideas the right considers brilliant.
A 25-watt bulb does not shine much light, much less gleam a brilliant light. Intellectually, Mr. Ryan is a 25-watt bulb.
20
Spot on Carl! Ryan, a closet mediocrity (with a phony PR image of a high policy wonk), who in the end, could not sell his “half-baked, nonsensical ideas.”
He accomplished little of any lasting value in his 22 years in Congress and leaves with a large pension that will probably last 35 years or longer.
Dems should be looking into “entitlement reform” for the Congress and the executive branch’s political class.
Thank you. Interesting as all this goes on how much we discover we are not alone in our views of these people and the damage they do and have done.
Or to rephrase Mr. Douthat: Paul Ryan was A Man for All Seasons but surely no Robert More. Really Mr Douthat? Given Mr. Ryan's consistent waiving of principle over the years another expression comes to mind, which you are no doubt familiar with: the banality of of evil.
7
Lying Ayn Ryan, soon to be former weakest house speaker in history, is a coward. He let Nunez sink House Russia probe. Tax cuts for the rich are not hard. Everything else is. Fraud.
17
I guessed at the punch line as I started the column, and......it appeared. Maybe I ought to buy some lottery tickets.
1
Paul Ryan will spend his last months in Congress desperately trying to take away benefits from the poor, the old and the ailing. That's who he is, and it's who he always has been. Worse than all that toadying up to the megawealthy, he has spent the past year putting party over country and selling out America's principles. In a just world, he would go home cloaked in shame and never leave his house again.
20
"liberals for whom Ryan was the most sinister of far-right operators, part fanatic and part huckster"
This liberal never once thought Ryan was PART huckster.
8
What an utterly desperate attempt to explain a man who should deservedly flee back to Wisconsin never to be heard from again. He's this! He's that! He's loyal! He's Randian! He talks about cutting the government then votes for greatly expanding spending...under G.W. Bush and under Trump. In other more succinct wording, he's...nothing. He's a tool of his times available for anyone to come along and use him like a rented mule.
He was pushed to take the Speakership? He knew it was a dishonor he couldn't refuse.
I read Ann Rand's "The Fountainhead" when I was 19, thought about it for a day or three and never looked back. When I picked up Atlas Shrugged, I shrugged, put it right back down. Bor/ing.
Ryan is to a true leader what a guy who cleans the toilets on airliners is to captain flying the plane.
The Trumpian moment was one that called for clear headed thinking and a willingness to put patriotism above party and, indeed, above self. Ryan flunked on all points. He is part of a system and part of a political party that has brought the nation into a river flowing with sewage and threatening the health and survival of the nation.
Good job, boy scout. Meanwhile, perhaps as he fades away he can find the means to wipe that silly, flat half smile off his face that he seems to carry around like a mask. Please.
13
I cannot abide by this compassionate apology for the Speaker of the House. Everyone has a choice. If Mr Ryan had a conscience, a backbone, reasonable ideas and the meagerest of courage in his convictions, he should have worked the system from the inside after attaining high office. He should have pushed, wheedled, cajoled and bullied his way to making the system work for the citizens of this nation. That he simply swung whichever way the GoP windsock indicated is the clearest sign of what is utterly broken in our system. Representatives are anointed to office by their wealthy donors aided by soulless lobbyists. They aren't there to work to make conditions better for the average person. They are there to make sure that wealth keeps flowing into the accounts of those who put them in office. Look at every bill that has passed in the past few dozen years... tax breaks, legal loopholes and targeted government spending - see? Ryan should have left long ago - or not even accepted the elevation to Speaker, if he had any scruples at all. That he did and sat as steward of the House through an unbelievable obstructive period speaks volumes of his character and intent.
8
Politicians have forgotten who put them in office. Once they get there they think of themselves & their careers (pensions, retirements, & under the table money). When all the town hall protests were going on they blamed all the anger on outsiders. They just don’t know the citizens that voted for them. They only care about their voters at campaign time. Any other time it’s out of sight out of mind.
To me, the interesting question is why Ryan chose to remain Speaker until January rather than resigning now. By staying, he’s put himself in a position to influence Congress’s response to Mueller’s findings. If, as expected, Mueller accuses Trump of obstruction of justice, will Ryan seek to protect the President or will he support impeachment? Ryan must have a pretty good idea of what he intends to do, and that, I believe has influenced his decision to stay on. On that decision, if he gets to make it, will rest our final judgment of his character: will he be a party man or will he be a man?
7
I read elsewhere that by staying through January, Ryan completes a 20 year career in Congress and therefore earns a more generous pension/benefits package. It fits. The "champion" of entitlement reform wants to maximize his own benefits. Of course, maybe it's the Mueller thing ;).
10
Stated more simply, and direct. Paul Ryan was not, and never was, a leader! How many time did I have to endure hearing that man say 'I don't wont to get too wonky' - oh, PLEASE DO. I'm intelligent enough to understand, Paul, please have your day and enlighten me. To this day, I have never heard Ryan articulate his vision or ideals, or truly defend any of his policy positions. I only hear pandering and slogans. The great people of Wisconsin, who thought they were voting for somebody of great mind and wisdom were all snookered - and the rest of us in america were left to suffer from this mans inherent weaknesses.
25
Thanks Ross,
Just read your column and you clearly explained Ryan's demise. I live in Illinois and once believed he was a thinker, a leader. Over the last few years I have become deeply disappointed in Paul Ryan. He lacked courage, and could not lead. Hie "retirement" is overdue.
Jim, Wilmette Illinois
7
IMO the only people who are going to miss Paul Ryan are the people who collect the royalties for Ayn Rand's estate. (Unless he buys more books to donate to the public libraries of Wisconsin - since he's cut their tax revenue!)
"Audio Surfaces of Paul Ryan's Effusive Love of Ayn Rand" https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/audio-surfaces-paul...
"It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well...But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand."
7
Ryan could have succeeded for a time in any era and as a member of any political party. That's because he has no core principles; only calculations as to what will sustain his popularity and keep the money coming in. As an opportunistic coward blowing in the wind, he simply looks for the most popular position and follows it. Tragically, he is the most dangerous type of leader. Like way too many leaders in government, religion and education today, he is adept at articulating widely trusted philosophies such as Catholic charity and fiscal responsibility, while supporting bills and people in direct opposition to those philosophies. So many follow him and politicians like him because he sounds so smart and kind; all the while he’s wrecking the lives and future lives of the weak and vulnerable and those born too late to fight him.
14
So well stated Anne. I could not agree more!
2
"Ryan .......... He was miscast as a visionary when he was fundamentally a party man — a diligent and policy-oriented champion for whatever the institutional G.O.P. appeared to want,...."
In other words, a man with principles, apolitical hack.
As a liberal, and a democrat, I disliked Ryan and his cruel policies, and fake math as often pointed out by Dr Krugman, but as when tRump came to power , I began to loathe him for placing party over country.
The fake patriots of the Republican Party have shown their stripes, bared their rudderless souls for what they are, he is but a empty suit covering shell of a man.
Good riddance.
12
Here’s the real news. Paul Ryan is a fake.
10
Oh comeon everyone knows that no Republican leader is ever gone. All it takes is an off center leader who aim is to change the page and all the old has beens crawl out of the swamp where they have been hiding and lurking and waiting for the right moment to reappear. If they could ,the Republicans would raise dear Ronnie from the grave and give him back the Presidency or Crown or whatever he wanted to just come back and take leadership of them. Think Newt Gingrich. Buck up and quit the whine.
2
Douthat says some considered Ryan a "villain poised to put his stamp upon the era". Many consider him a villain, but the ones I have read (including Paul Krugman and others in the NY Times) have been saying that he is a con-man, not really interested in the era.
Hannah Arendt concluded that although a few Nazis were fanatics, nearly all were mediocre people promoting their own faults. She called this "the banality of evil". She had observed that most party members were acting for their own reasons. The party let them benefit from flawed behaviors they had practiced before joining the party. One interesting finding of their research was that they were almost all bad family men, and that for many one of the perks of the party was spending time away from their families. Which raises the question: will Ryan really spend so much time with his family? Or will he a short time after leaving Congress get a better paying job working for one of the right wing propaganda mills? I do not know. If his banal evil is as Arendt describes, we will see the latter happening.
125
Paul Ryan, Smarmy Man
4
Paul, don't leave! Who will explain insurance to us?
2
For once, Mr. Douthat has written something with which I can agree. Missing, though, is the fact that the entire Republican Party is driven by Party (please read that as Power) rather than any ideology.
From the disgraceful refusal to consider Mr. Obama's SCOTUS nominee to the election of Trump )and now the institutionalization of Trumpism within the Party) and through the curtain-tearing realization that the Party has no real policy agenda, the Party, its leadership, and its members have ALWAYS acting in the interest of their own maintenance of power.
Now that it is clear that goal is not sustainable without some ability to govern, the failing figures are fleeing. Unfortunately leaving us with true, and scary, ideologues.
6
I think you're wrong to assume this is the end of Paul Ryan's political career. He's not being forced out like John Boehner. If the tide comes back for Reaganites in the future, I'm sure you'll find Ryan running for Senate again if not the White House. Until then, he'll collect a comfortable salary as a lobbyist or consultant. Ryan is only 48. That gives him almost three decades to wait things out. We're only too lucky if Ryan stays retired on his first try.
Also, if you hadn't noticed, the Republican Party tends to reward party me. That's essentially they're modus operandi. Shut up and do what the donors tell you. Paul Ryan was elevated to the level of visionary in the media but really all the Party wanted was a yes-man. They knew what they were getting. No one wanted that job anyway. I'm surprised Ryan suffered the humiliation of taking the position. His most un-party like action was to announce his departure before the election.
That decision might come back to haunt him.
"Entitlement Reform" - a cynical euphemism for slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (and commandeering for private profit whatever is not cut)
6
I think this is one of the best takes on Ryan that I have seen, and it isn't really inconsistent with Paul Krugman's less understanding although equally fair view that Ryan is essentially a fraud. To both Douthat and Krugman, Ryan is a man without real principle, and the only question is whether he is a liar or just a party man.
Words matter in how we choose to describe Ryan or anyone else. Douthat refers to "entitlement reform" and "corporate tax reform". I might refer to those concepts as "cuts in social benefits" and "cuts in corporate taxes." They aren't "reforms" at all. Reforms are systemic changes intended to make something work better. These cuts are simply transfers of wealth from average citizens to corporate executives and shareholders.
The selection of terminology reveals the bias of the speaker or worse, in the case of Ryan at least, the intent to deceive. I won't accept that Paul Ryan ever believed that his dream of a slashed social safety net would advantage most Americans. His policy views reflected his belief about the natural order of things, which isn't reformist at all.
This brings me to another word choice. Rather than "libertarian", how about "Darwinian"? That would be a far more accurate take on the views of Ryan and his fellow Republican leaders. Take what you can, when you can, however you can.
9
Isn't he the person who went to college using Social Security minor survivor benefits, and now wants to cut Social Security for everyone else?
Good riddance!
11
So what? The party line is mean-spirited.
3
Party men and women or no, there's no one who can save us from our hating selves but us. Ryan knows that. Here's hoping the rest of the politicians wake up, resign and move on. We need to start with new stalwarts who want to serve us all, irrespective of party, through the use of a politics that works. The Party is over. Get off the floor. Let's play a new song we can all embrace and dance to....
1
I hate that “I’m better than you” smile. So fake. I truly do not understand a boy growing up poor, having to use SSI to go to college treating Americans the way he has when he passd tax cuts that hurt the lower classes & wants to not reform social security & Medicare but do away with them. I hope his hometown doesn’t drive him out when the truth of his actions hit them also. Of course he will live in a big house with walls & gates to protect from that.
3
It's possible that Paul Ryan was always driven by the fact that he relied on Social Security after his father died. Perhaps it was a source of shame for him; maybe family or friends taunted him about it. He may have felt like one of the "takers" he so disparages, leading him to adopt the Ayn Randian attitude of "I am strong and can do it all by myself." Maybe his intent in political office was to erase what he sees as the dark spot in his past by ensuring that no one else could be such a "taker." The Big Money Republican donors could exploit this psychological weakness for their own selfish ends. Just a hypothesis.
4
The majority of the public, including most Republicans,
see Donald Trump as a cancer on the body politic. Since they cain't cut out the tumor, themselves, without being seen as traitors to The Cause, the leaders of the Republican party are simply going to step aside and let the Demockrats perform the surgery for them.
3
The only good thing about Trump as president is there is no curtain to hide behind. Now we can all see the republicans and conservative pundits as truly who they are. Lack or no moral character, integrity and honesty is mind boggling.
2
Whoever imagined Ryan a visionary was as much a dullard as he is. Good Lord, the man was about as bright as a ten-watt bulb. He even believed Ayn Rand was a visionary. Enough said. May he return to Wisconsin and never be heard from again.
8
Good column. I might add that he chose party above country even though he appears to have known better. He kept his distance from Trump because he understood the dangers that Trump presented but he swallowed hard and we are where we are. You are correct -- the ultimate " party man".
3
The problem with Ryan, the problem with Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives is that they know the answer to every question before the facts are collected; In fact they know all the answers before the questions are even asked. This defeats the purpose of good governance, which is to find the best workable solution without regard to personal prejudice. We don't need Republicans or Democrats, Liberals or Conservatives; what we need are pragmatists, people who are able to come to the table without the burden of knowing all the answers in advance.
2
Good point and with the pragmatism needs to be understanding of where we are in order to lead and vision as to where the world is headed and how it can be steered, recognizing the fact and exercising, rather than choice of yes or no,of American leadership.
Mr Douthat, Mr Ryan is no Mr Kemp. Despite the fact that Kemp was free market and one major issue type of candidate, his experience as Secy of HUD gave him perspective that led him to talk to the Republicans about the importance of housing and economic development of minorities and what he got was laughs because they thought he was telling jokes. The party needs men of courage to speak for the people not the money. Ryan was never that. I don’t see anyone else. Maybe Jeff Flake.
Great perspective! But we are so far off track that even facts are politicized by all sides.
Paul Krugman got this one right: Ryan's consistent efforts were to "comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted." Ryan is a good party man in the sense that this has been the program of the Republican Party since 1877. The differences today are that the Party has largely succeeded, the gap between the comfortable and the afflicted grows ever larger, and the percentage in the comfortable class grows smaller. If the plans to gut Social Security and Medicare succeed, the comfortable will become a tiny minority. The real task for the media is explaining how a majority of American voters ever turned power over to Ryan and his Party. Like the election of Trump, the whole story does not speak well of my fellow citizens.
10
No eggheads are ever given the throne.
Ryan is another empty gasbag, like all of them, but ESPECIALLY the white men of the Republican party.
America LOVES empty gasbags. Just pay attention at every family gathering. It is pure mundane drivel and once one raises the level of discourse, fights break out because stupid people always attack. They feel attacked themselves. Persecuted. Victims.
"Why don't we do it in the road?"
9
This is a fairly accurate assessment of a rather dull, not particularly intelligent con man, an order of magnitude below Trump. However it misses a few relevant points:
As mentioned, Ryan was often touted as having a brain, when in fact all of his budget proposals could have come from a bewildered freshman flunking Economics 101. He wanted to raise the retirement age to 70, but now retires at 48 with an extremely generous pension.
As far as compassion, his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act would have a person earning $18,000 a year paying $14,000 of it for health insurance. This he hails as a great victory for personal freedom.
Ryan, waiting to run for President, is in fact a callous, fanatical Randian ideologue, devoid of compassion, wedded to Rand's inflexible caricature of a philosophy. I would be relieved at his retirement, but for inevitability of his pestilential return to public life.
Dan Kravitz
18
Ryan wasn't a "party man". Ryan was out for himself first and foremost. After that came the party and there in lies the problem. Ryan never put the country first or even cared about the country at all.
10
Why not keep this column of reflection on Ryan to one simple sentence.
Ryan was a chameleon who had no principals.
10
A soulless shark masked by basset hound eyes. Good riddance.
He is a party man indeed. So are the rest of the GOP who have demonstrated no loss of sleep putting party over country.
Run, Ryan, run.
Conservatism - no matter how you try to dress it up is not worthy of the America I want back.
12
There's no sugar coating Ryan. He's just your standard Republican hack whose schtick was deficit nerd. His perverse solution was always the same; tax cuts for the rich and safety net elimination for everyone else. He needed to leave before the full effects of his hypocrisy are felt.
12
Put more simply, Ryan might have been a successful president of a Chamber of Commerce in a small midwestern city. He is little more than Babbitt come to life.
9
To reduce this to its essence, when the smoke clears from the wreckage left behind by Trump and the GOP, Ryan’s excuse will be a familiar one: “I was only following orders.”
5
Ross, he was the third most powerful man in the country and did nothing to move along any cause to benefit the general citizenry of the country. He was in the pocket of big money all along. He did not have the guts to confront Trump or his stupid ideas. We do no need people of Ryan's ilk in these high positions of command. You're right, he was a party man in a bad party.
10
Seems to me, Paul Ryan's epitaph should read, "Coward."
He has no principles. He projected and protected an image of competence, but he was in well over his head.
After selling America's future to Wall Street he decided to bail before the consequences are fully realized.
He bails out with a gold parachute and a golden landing in sight.
11
His legacy will be one of the chief protectors and enablers of the tRump syndicate.
This "good Catholic" best sit in the confessional for a while pondering his penance for mortal sins.
Fear not, he will soon surface serving as lobbyist or spokesperson for one of the billionaire boys club members, Koch, Sinclair or Mercer.
7
How does one think Jesus Christ would judge Trump, Ryan, McConnell or for that matter the great majority of the Republican Party with regards to their treatment of the great majority of the normal citizens. Just from His teachings and the bible itself I believe they would be cast aside by Him to the dinner table of Satan.
1
A patsy, an opportunist, an operative, and without scruple.
9
One word summary of Ryan: Opportunist. In a world where all his supporters were willing, even eager to overlook the big mistakes in his "wonkish" policies, budgets, principles enabled him to fool his doting supporters. They wanted to be fooled because they could not handle the truth!
8
Paul Ryan as a wonk. a compassionate conservative, a decent, devout Catholic, a middle American are all ludicrous suppositions. Ryan spent his entire career trying to destroy our social safety net. He always voted to give more money to the rich. He now realizes that Trump has exposed the bigoted, misogynistic, greedy GOP for the world to see. He wants out before "the good ole white boys" get a "shellacking".
12
Rather a nice tribute; ave, atque vale.
Character and Integrity are all a person has to loose in Congress. Great tax bills mean little. Knowing when to leave, and why, is the beginning of a redemptive process that Paul Ryan recognizes he’s ready for. He’s leaving the likes of the Tea Party Caucus in the swamp where they belong, and he was king.
3
Always fun when Pope Roscoe talks about principles!
Paul Ryan principles! Congressman how did you amass 7 million dollars on a congressman’s salary? Principles? When you see the word reform run and hold on to your wallets. Conservative reform means nothing for all and everything for the sleaze at the top of which Mr. D is a courtier.
Sir, please retire or move to the Catholic newspaper.
3
You miss the most glaring character trait of the real Ryan; cowardice. The so-called "party man" never stood up for the principles of his party or his own principles while meekly allowing Trump to subvert the GOP into a tame cheering section for his demagoguery. He didn't even have the guts to fire Nunes, another Trump toady, for abdicating his oversight responsibilities as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- intelligence being an oxymoron, minus the oxy, when applied to Nunes.
4
Having never evolved out of the fictional dystopia of Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, Paul Ryan strove to take away the very same benefits that allowed him to achieve his "success" after his father died.
Ryan was paid 500 thousand by C. Koch after the
permanent tax cut for the wealthiest bill was passed.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/370037-charles-koch-donated-500k-to...
Ryan is and has been a transparent tool for the wealthy who now run the government thanks to the passing of Citizens United.
5
Lot's of talk: about political style, philosophy, etc.
Missing: specific action, legislation to help people. Income and wealth disparity, education, healthcare.
Missing: a commitment to improving the country's infrastructure. We are crumbling and falling behind.
Missing: true conservative fiscal responsibility (forget todays temporary definition, lets' use the one that has been used for eons).
Missing: a legacy of having done something positive for America. Anything. Unless you count a zillion efforts to take healthcare AWAY from citizens.
Paul Ryan: a failure, a political puppet of the Oligarchs. They put him in office. He did what they asked. The people were left in the dust...
5
Paul Ryan was a fraud. His persona was one of an "aw shucks" likable Midwesterner. Yet, he was front and center among the Republicans who conspired to deny President Obama any legislative victories as Obama took the oath of office. He claimed to be for family values yet pined to turn Medicare into a coupon (so-called voucher) system for the benefit of private insurers, steering seniors into high-deductible, high-cost plans that would have bankrupted many (take that grandma and grandpa). He infamously said that food stamps don't work as evidenced by the fact that so many needed them after the Great Recession. And he spearheaded tax reform that pays back his wealthy donors and throws crumbs to the masses. And then there is his trademark - his constant warnings during the Obama years against deficits. How ironic that his legacy will be massive deficits for years to come, largely because of his leadership.
9
In other words Ryan is a party hack with no principles or integrity. He will go where ever the political winds take him with no regard for anything greater than himself. A quiet egotist.
2
Finally, Ryan has done a noble service to the country -- resigning. Sadly, cleaning up his mess will take a generation, if it's even possible.
5
Paul Ryan is just another GOPer who came to Washington and allowed himself to be bought and paid for. Ryan accepted big, big money from the Koch Brothers and gave them a huge tax cut. No "policy wonk" at work in that equation.
2
I couldn't help but smile when I read that Ryan was "a diligent and policy-oriented champion."
He was not policy oriented by any stretch. He succeeded in making people believe he was a policy wonk. I can't help but bring up his presentation of a pie chart explaining why Obamacare was evil in which he said that the healthy were required to have insurance so others' insurance rates were moderate and under control. No, duh! That is the basic definition of an insurance. I pay for my automobile insurance even though I've never collected a single penny from it for all of my life. Meanwhile all those unsfae drivers' rates have been subsidized by me.
He is not diligent at all. He presents a balanced budget in which the balancing is achieved by unspecified cuts here and there or some magical growth that cannot be defended. That is not the sign of a diligent analyst; it is the hallmark of a huckster who throws big words and concepts hoping that his audience is dumb enough not to question his analysis.
The best words that describe him: a flim-flam con man who has one idea, tax cuts, and nothing else in his cranium.
7
The gripe this old liberal has against Ayn Rand is the way she appeals to mediocre people who feel the need to explain away their selfish impulses. Ta-da: "Selfishness is a virtue! It makes the world go 'round! And because I am one of the few who embrace this idea, I must be a Howard Roark or John Galt, too!"
Paul Ryan is the inevitable result of this way of thinking. Educated through the generosity of his government, he learned the Randian trick of persuading himself that it was justified in his case (but not in anyone else's). No doubt his willingness to work himself to the bone for fellow political travelers won him notice from the real big-money people, who may or may not be Objectivists but certainly feel they are entitled to every dime they can squeeze out of the world, by fair means or foul. They used him as long as he proved useful. Now he can fold up his cot and go home.
In the final analysis, Ryan and others like him are not so much products of Randian philosophy as they are perfect examples of the Peter Principle: Men and women who are promoted until they reached the point where they could no longer transcend their own incompetence, to the detriment of the organization.
Good riddance.
3
Ryan's narcissism only looks good when compared to Trump's narcissism. Neither is as smart or important as they think they are. Now Ryan will transition from a lifetime on the public teat to a cushy job as a lobbyist for the industries that he's been busily fluffing. Sorry, but I'm glad this phony is done.
2
Kudos to Ross for a column about Conservatives and what went wrong without invoking some kind of false equivalency or the Clintons. I certainly do not agree with Paul Ryan’s politics but he certainly seems a heck of a more decent man than the one we have in the White House. It is sad for us all that Conservatives would rather choose a Trump like persona than one like Ryan’s.
Paul Ryan said he wants more minorities in the GOP but refuses to own the fact they support white supremacy.
Steve Scalise (r) Louisiana wants the Speaker Job, and describes himself as David Duke without the baggage. Sadly, being a white supremist isn’t a disqualification from being Speaker.
2
Not only that, but there's no such thing as a white supremacist without the baggage.
2
As my ultrarunning wife constantly points out, this is a man who lied about his best marathon time. Not clipped a few seconds off, not rounded down--but flat out lied, not running a time, in any and all records that can be consulted, anywhere near what he claimed.
In her mind, this disqualified him from any consideration as a thoughtful legislator, or even one who deserved to be voted or appointed in to any office. I'm not a runner, but I see nothing wrong with that sentiment.
4
Don't be fooled; Paul Ryan will run for President in 2024. His youngest will then be nineteen, probably in college, and the coast will be clear.
There will be a growing realization among Republicans that to break with Trump or leave politics could pay dividends down the road, and the earlier one leaves, the less sullied one can claim to be. Ryan will wear his departure as a badge of honor on two fronts, personal and political. His stumping will be a calculated "I am such a noble family-values guy".....alongside "Trump ruined our party, but I will save the GOP". He is ever the opportunist, it's just that this time it's a long play.
3
Ryan successfully provided the pro quo so he's positioning himself to accept the quid. This seems to be every American politician's bucket list these days.
3
Yes, he’s been the good soldier. But the Republicans used him poorly, touting this child politician as a wonk (only in comparison to his fellow Republicans can he be seen as wonkish), and, as Mr. Douthat reveals, setting him up as a symbol of Randian libertarianism. If branding him party man is a kindness on his withdrawal from the fray, it nevertheless covers up a lot of sins. If his claim that he wants more time with family strikes one as both admirable and trite at the same time, let’s nevertheless hope that he still has time to train for a marathon, where he will undoubtedly break 3 hours again.
3
The individual has become a caricature in this world. Ryan, you & I mean nothing.
Why? Well, a few reasons, all connected: greed, money, wealth, avarice, property, hedge funds, billionaires, tax havens, tax lawyers, lobbyists, right-wing media, lies, etc.
We can't be fooled by some man behind the curtain, for there is no curtain. Money & the cravings for it have destroyed much of the goodness here & in virtually every other country. This is not 'fake' news; it's not news at all because it's not to be talked about. Don't wake the baby.
What have Trump & the Republicans/Ryan done? One major thing: cut taxes for the rich. That is truly, 'Mission Accomplished'. All the lying, cheating, treasonous corruptions, super-PAC payments, Supreme Court corruptions, Republican dominated federal government have led us here. This place is for the rich, & therefore, is a most terrible place for the poor, the workers, democracy, equality, honesty, honor and respect.
So, the 'party', man, is going on for the top 10%, top 5% and certainly the top 1% is the giddiest of them all.
We the People created this monster, or, at the very least, we allow it to dominate our country. Shameful.
Of course we can come back from the dead; it's in our power. But, the will? Where's the will?
The power of right-wing, billionaire media is overwhelming at times. We can't escape.
But, we can turn away once it's vicious tentacles grasp for us. And, we can work to create a more perfect Union. Slowly, we can.
7
This helpless nation cannot even grab the Electoral College travesty by the horns. My vote has never counted in a presidential election, and it evidently never will, because I don't live where it matters.
2
good point....
Another Republican rat jumping off the Trump Titanic.
He'll probably end up either a lobbyist, join a think tank or become another talking head on Fox. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck with a rapacious 1 trillion dollar deficit.
So thanks, Mr. Speaker, for nothing.
11
He may be a weak-minded hack, but hey, he’s got a nice pension and platinum healthcare for life. What a deal.
10
Can we reform Ryan's Entitlements?
7
Ryan’s ascendency to the Speakership and a reputation as a can government man apparently were overstatements of his actual capabilities. He could never tame his GOP comrades or figure out Trump who I believe gutted Ryan’s sensibilities to the point of gutless inactivity. Perhaps Ryan understood his weakness and decided to bail out. In any event, the dissipation of the GOP majorities is in full bloom. Thank goodness.
2
The Ayn Rand ideology which molded Ryan is one of cold, calm, calculating self-interest.
It never could work with the crazy, impulsive, raging hurricane that is Donald Trump.
But shed no tears for Paul - the corporate conservative Overlords he has so faithfully served will take good care of him.
Seats on corporate boards, “consultancy” sinecures, outrageous speaking fees, and sweetheart stock deals are just the obvious rewards.
As Paul Ryan went out the door that loud noise you heard was “Ka-Ching!”
6
In May of 2017, the Chicago Sun-Times had a full page, front page photograph of the Rose Garden celebration of the House vote on repeal of Obamacare. President Trump, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and Steven Scalise were prominent with other House Republicans, all "grinning like mules eating briars." Oh how happy they were. (until John McCain killed their plan with his famous thumbs down vote in the Senate). At the time of this front page photo, I scanned it on my computer, reduced it to billfold size , and filed it under "2018 campaign material." After Ryan's announcement to leave Congress, I posted the photo with the caption: "those were the days my friend , we thought they'd never end."
8
Paul Ryan is a non-compassionate conservative.
2
To sum up, in essence there was no there there. With apologies to Gertrude Stern...
4
I recall reading (in the NYT) that during Obama's 1st year as President, when Obama and Democrats passed a big economic stimulus plan, that while publicly opposing the stimulus, Ryan successfully directed some stimulus funds to his district. The hypocrite. If I find the URL I will post it.
4
Shorter Ross: Ryan is not the policy wonky intellectual core of the GOP, he's a spineless weasel finally undone by a party that twisted him into a pretzel.
Good riddance.
6
"This is not to say that he lacked principles."
He might as well have. What good are principles if you won't stand up for them?
Ryan will forever be remembered for supporting a racist president and robbing from the poor to feed the rich.
8
So Ryan was an unprincipled opportunist and ultimately a failure. Okay, I’ll buy it.
7
Given what today's Republican Party has become, "party man" is not a term of endearment.
3
Your bayou airboat disaster image is one of the better things scribbled on the blank slate that was always Paul Ryan.
3
In other words, a Vichy collaborator who decided to get out of town before his complete lack of any principles leaves him with no support from anyone. "Family man" is a better image to project while waiting to run for President than "spineless hypocrite". Of course, every family in America is saddled with $65,000 in inheritable debt to cover the corporate smash-and-grab that has been cynically passed off as tax reform. They have shot Obama care in leg, and then said "See, told you so, can't walk." He's just a bag man for the obscenely greedy kleptogarchs who purchase Republican policy on the campaign contribution market, then justify their thievery with brainwashing campaigns carefully targeted at every pocket of resentment, ignorance and racism they can stoke. America is divided, all right, into pitiable marks who applaud being duped, and unwilling victims who can't believe we continue to allow a man to run our country who would not last a week managing a Taco Bell. Paul Ryan could redeem himself if he went after Trump tooth-and-nail while refusing to run in 2020. But he would need a spine and a sense of true patriotism, so dream on.
5
It's a rare thing when I agree with you, Mr. Douthat, but you still daintily tip-toe away from calling Paul Ryan what he was: a total fraud. Afraid to stomp a man when he's on the ground? Ryan did that to the poor. Where were you then? Where was your voice?
6
Mr. Douthat, you are too kind to Mr. Ryan . . . he just another Republican con man interested in self aggrandizement. Now that he is worth millions of dollars, he will leave Congress to make even more money.
4
Yes, yes....St. Ryan, the shining knight of Right. To me, he's the utter fraud and hypocrite whose childhood life was kept from devastation by Social Security, the very program he wants now to gut, privatize and destroy.
3
Exactly, Ryan should have stopped being a 'Party Man' when the party went rouge. It's called leadership.
2
When your party is completely devoid of rational ideas and competent policy makers it's easy to hook your wagon to an empty suit like Ryan. Anybody looks better than nobody.
4
I dislike being rude on a dazzling Sunday morning especially, but P.R. was, and is, a moral coward, a lackey, and a terrible representative for the middle- and working class. No enemies required if this man is your friend.
And (in for a penny, in for a pound) his obsequiousness, his fawning, adoring smile towards 45 is shameful, gut-wrenching, horrifying. Why show approval of a man you yourself, on national TV, said was a bigot?
Just an unlikable cat is P.R. In fact, his unlikability compares favorably with such disgusting icons as Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm. Which is no mean feat. These guys have mastered the genre.
Soon, thank heaven and the saints, all these evil spirits will be out of Congress.
(At least now I have something to say at confession: always a silver lining, eh?)
3
These two things are what I will remember about Paul Ryan: (1) He lied about his marathon time, flagrantly and hugely lied and (2) He went into a soup kitchen on a holiday, but lo and behold the poor (and underserving?) had already been fed and the pots all washed up by people who really cared, but because he had to have a photo op he pretended to care, donned an apron and started 'washing' out pots with a sweet smile on his face. I almost barfed.
And, of course, there is Ayn Rand, the author that most of us discovered and discarded by the end of our freshman year in college (if not before - I read and discarded her in tenth grade; I don't boast often, but that I'll boast about). Speaker Ryan 'suggested' to any new additions to his staff that they read her works. Really.
And, then of course, taking his father's social security death benefits and wanting to cut/deny those life-saving benefits to others.
Don't let the door hit ya on the way out and thanks for nothing. Now go to your cushy corporate job that awaits you, the Kochs are so grateful. And, oh yeah, don't be a week-end dad. Don't forget that's your excuse for running away.
6
Americans, be glad. At least one primitivo is gone.
1
Ryan is no different from all the other GOP Pols, but for his good looks.
His attitude changed when he suckered the GOP into his election as Speaker. The first rate con job.
Now he goes???
Yeah, his kids are his concern. Sure they are.
Another con job.
1
How to turn a phrase:
GOP bayou=swamp
alligators=freedom caucus
fire in propeller=Koch Brothers/Mercers
This vessel of hobgoblins Cruz, Pence, Issa, Mica, Scalise, Cornyn, Cotton motoring its way into the hears of millions in order to continue writing invoices to the US taxpayer for services their friends supply. Everyone wants to be Erik Prince. Every one of these quagmire creatures sees dollar signs in their future, ripe for the taking through war, industrial farming, mining and fossil fuels, dumping waste that pollutes our country every day.
1
It would do Mr. Douthat well to read his colleague Dr. Krugman's recent assessment of the vacuous Congressman. He was a political "Chauncey Gardiner awaiting a reincarnated Peter Sellers to make the sequel to "Being There".
1
Well, you certainly gave us almost every option on how to view Ryan!
You covered ALMOST every avatar known to man - and yet still, somehow, managed to miss the true Ryan, the historical Ryan of the Future that will be sticking to history's ribs like a fine bowl of Scottish oatmeal.
In fact, Ross, the Future will remember Paul Ryan as the man who hung up his spurs the day AFTER Trump signed his order that any poor person receiving any assistance from any program (housing, TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, etc.) will have to work for it.
This was what Ryan and his goofy math had been slaving for for the last 20 years, well, actually, even longer than that if you count his "Kegger" story, where, even as a lad at a frat party he was gazing into the flames of the bonfire and day-dreaming that someday he would get to throw all those poor people off medical aid. (Google it: Paul Ryan, kegger party, Medicaid. Pops right up.)
No, this is how Ryan will be remembered: As the man who quit one day after he was ensured that millions and millions of poor people would be miserable, frightened, perhaps homeless, and their children going hungry.
And, never forget as we march into that future, that when Ryan was a lad his father died and Ryan, himself, and his whole family, had to go onto Social Security.
Oh, yes. Ryan will be remembered by millions and millions in the next coming decades when all of his TAX CUT gift of trillions that he handed over to the 1% kills this nation.
I won't miss him.
3
Mr Douthat,
You could have written this column before Ryan decided to quit but you did not. Like many others when people of your party are in power you have no bad things to say about them ( You should ). You defend them one way or the other. As soon as they are gone some wisdom falls on you and then you begin to analyze and find faults with them.
It’s make no difference of your post analysis after the event.
2
Well said and true
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3
This OPED makes a strong case that Ryan violated his oath of office. He replaced the Constitution with blind fidelity to his twisted racist party and to his twist racist big money donors .
3
What? You mean there are people who didn't recognize from his first smarmy smirk that Ryan was a climber and a trimmer?
Oh. You mean there were people who realized that a climber and a trimmer is the perfect person to use for your own ends.
2
Ryan is such a party man that he is stepping down before the midterms that will leave him with no majority to "lead." If by party man you mean "spineless" then he's a party man. But if you mean that he actually wants what is best for his party, I see no sign of it. Being malleable is necessary for a party leader; but a certain amount of courage and self-sacrifice are sometimes required, and by leaving now, Ryan is showing how little he's willing to demonstrate either. He has raised his true flag, and it depicts a rat.
2
Ryan doesn't help anyone by hanging on until January. If he supports McCarthy to be Speaker next, he should get out of the way now.
A nicely written column that could be summarized in just a few words: Ryan is a spineless man who got swallowed by the monster he helped create. Good riddance Mr. Speaker.
4
You cannot assert “This is not to say that he [Ryan] lacked principles" and then later say "nor would he would break with the party when it seemed to go insane.” These two assertions are self-contradictory. A principled person would indeed have broken with his party – he would have had no choice.
If Ryan had had “principles,” he would have continuously denounced Trump for his overt racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, lying, bullying, war-mongering, cheating, and stupidity. And if Ryan had had “principles” he would also have continuously denounced his own party, which not merely “seemed to go insane,” but in fact went insane. Examples? Well, start with the $1.3 trillion tax cut (the only thing Republicans know how to do), which catapulted the size of the national debt into the stratosphere – notwithstanding endless generations of House Republicans railing daily about the size of that debt. Or how about the fact that the vast majority of “pro-business” House Republicans uttered not a peep when Trump started the US down the path of trade wars against allies and enemies alike? Or how about Russia, which "Saint" Ronald Reagan “conquered” in the 1980s by calling out the Soviet Union as an existential threat to the U.S. and bringing that nation to its financial knees with his Star Wars program, while House Republicans today utterly failed to stand up to Trump when he refused to cooperate with investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election?
Good riddance Paul.
1
So everything we've heard and seen from Paul Ryan over the past 20 years was just in our imagination. You've got to be kidding. I've never seen someone go so far to make excuses in an attempt to wipe out what we've all witnessed. Oh, all this time we actually had it all wrong when it comes to Paul Ryan. How could we have been so stupid?! Give me a break, Ross.
"The mistake about Paul Ryan[...] was to imagine him as a potential protagonist for our politics,
1
You paint a very unflattering picture of both the man and the party he represents. You say he could only finish his career in frustration because he went wherever the winds of change blew within the Republican party, but certainly that is the exact reason he will be considered a failure. A true leader sticks with his principals however the winds blow. And a true political party doesn't change just because the presidency changes hands from one extreme ideologue to the next. God help anyone who's epitaph can be summed up in the two word headstone "Party Man" because it screams that he was never his own man.
Congressman Ryan must feel greatly honored by all the analyses, complimentary as well as denigratory, written about him by respected journalists, such as the author of this article, and by news-inventing scribblers.
If we are to compare Ryan to aviators, he was a cargo plane pilot, essentially a bus driver, not a dare-devil in an F-16.
2
So, ultimately a person of no consequence, despite his elevation to Speaker of the House...
2
Is there anyone in the GOP left who is not a party man?
1
Or as Gertrude Stein once opined when asked her opinion about the city of Oakland..."there's no there there"
2
Ryan has never been any kind of a moral and believable leader for the Republicans. He's nothing but a flim flam guy who gave us only a fast, smooth talking con job as a explanation for anything that came out of his mouth.
2
"Party man" means "donor man." Never has there been a more pathetic toady to his donors than Ryan. He's been a ventriloquist's dummy for his rich backers from start to finish. He's a perfect disciple of Ayn Rand who cares only about making the rich richer and the "loser" poor poorer. But he's worse than Rand, because he has the audacity to work exclusively for the rich yet call himself a "Christian." Only an electorate as the modern Republican party's could be so morally bankrupt as to either ignore such grotesque hypocrisy or actually applaud it.
2
Good opinion piece but it really gives Ryan too much credit. Ryan by definition was just as Simon Cameron stated, "an honest politician is one who when he is bought he will stay bought." Ryan's signature legislation a tax cut benefiting the wealthy and a budget with no signs of financial restraint should be how he is remembered.
He helped the wealthy get really wealthy and he kicked the can down the road to our children.
SNAFU, there was no leadership nor courage, nor vision
1
When you have a very few convictions of your own. Little to show for (non-material) that you have truly accomplished for the greater good. Lived a ruderless political career. I guess, you can just sleep fine at night.
1
Another tiny, tiny man slithers away leaving behind the ruins of his ignorance and lack of courage. And he gets away scot-free, lapping up "entitlements" for the rest of his life.
6
Ryan = another tool for big money.
1
“Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire....For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me....40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’”
So I guess Ryan’s going to hell?
Cruelty to strangers (foreign born), cutting food stamps, ending Obamacare, de-regulating polluters while giving to the rich while stealing from the poor. And a devout Catholic as well as an Ayn Rand devotee. Ayn Rand hated God, Christianity, and altruism. Rand: “What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.“ Rand claimed:”nobody has ever given a reason why man should be his brothers’ keeper, and you have every example, and you see examples around you of men perishing by their attempt to be their brothers’ keeper.” Little more than an intellectual “Mean girl” Rand was unfamiliar with George Price and his equation that provides mathematical importance of altruism to all species’ survival. Altruism is a biological imperative. So her devotion to objectivism is devoid of objectivity, aside from being literary trash.
Ryan’s inspiration promoted sexual promiscuity, birth control and abortion: “An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential...The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).”
1
The saddest thing was when he said, "We've got to stop being the stupid party!", and then was subsequently proved 100% wrong. Sad for him; sad for us.
6
As one who never once thought for a moment that Paul Ryan's interest were reflective of anything other than his own, it's hard to argue that he was successful at anything other than fulfilling that.
As for Mr. Ryan being a 'Party Man', one is forced to ask these days, which party?
Since it appears that the Republican party has become the party of Donald Trump -- and Trump is his own party unto itself.
But no matter which way you look at it, Paul Ryan did nothing for the American people besides orchestrating their financial ruin, or smiling meekly as it was being brought about by others in the name of implementing fiscal austerity as some kind of a conservative moral crusade that didn't apply to himself and his fellow Republicans.
He deserves no thanks.
And that he has chosen this time to exit the fiasco he has helped to bring about, is nothing more than a sign that as House Speaker, he has accomplished as much damage as he can possibly do -- and recognizes a ship when it is about to go down.
12
Could someone please explain the bizzarre sign-off "Nicholas Kristof is off today." Why does it appear at the end of a Ross Douthat column? Does anyone really think that Douthat's readers can't wait to see what Nicholas Kristof thinks? Or that they read Douthat's column by mistake and were looking for Kristoff's all along? It's weird.
And what does Kristof do on his day off?
1
Douthat's Republican Party, where everyone is complicit but no one is responsible...neat trick...
11
Four words sum it all up: "coward through and through"
8
Ryan is Lon Chaney. Look it up: man of a thousand faces. None of them his own.
3
Al Capp, the late cartoonist created "shmoos" for his comic strip "Lil Abner". Shmoos turned themselves into whatever the person who encountered them wanted at the moment. Ryan was the shmoo for Republican donors.
4
When Boehner saw the lunatics had taken over his party, he bid them good riddance, cut a deal with the Democrats to fund the government, and took off. He had the clarity of vision and common sense to know you can't negotiate with fanatics. I wonder what he would have done about Trump. I don't think he wouldn't have sat still for the Nazi march in Charlottesville, or put up with the racist blather Trump spews. He had some backbone, some common decency, and he knew where he came from. Too bad none of it ever rubbed off on Ryan. Maybe it would have made a difference.
3
"Entitlement reform"....please, drop the euphamism. Ryan was hellbent to take away the shreds of dignity left in our thin, thin safety net - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As for the "compassionate conservatism" that made up No Child Left Behind, it was a disaster, unleashing scorn on teachers unless the vaunted test scores of their students went up.
Bye bye to Ryan - who needs to rush home to take care of his teenage children, mission accomplished with a draconian tax cut favoring his patrons, corporations and the 1%.
6
Medicare Part D nothing more than a giveaway to health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry. I have been paying BC/BS dutifully monthly and have never benefited other than to receive a slight discount for my few medications because I "have insurance." You have to spend thousands before you receive any benefit from this program.
1
Anyone who turns their cheek While Trump destroys our government has sold their soul to the devil !
9
"Among liberals for whom Ryan was the most sinister of far-right operators, part fanatic and part huckster — a Lyle Lanley with “Atlas Shrugged” in his back pocket..."
But Mr. Ryan does have a copy of Atlas Shrugged in his figurative back pocket. In fact, IMO he & his nationwide Koch-allied cohort are still attempting to run the United States of America based on...one novel.
Transcript/audio of a speech Rep. Ryan gave to Ayn Rand devotees in 2005:
http://atlassociety.org/commentary/commentary-blog/4971-paul-ryan-and-ay...
"In almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill, whether it’s an amendment vote that I’ll take later on this afternoon, or a big piece of policy we’re putting through our Ways and Means Committee, it is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict: individualism vs. collectivism."
"I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises so that I know that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism."
"...there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works."
Ayn Rand true believers like Mr. Ryan in US government are bad enough; what's worse is the non-true-believer government servants willing to do the bidding of wealthy Rand true believers - to gain personal power.
10
Save your brown nosing Ross- Ryan is a completely empty suit with as much policy wonk credibility as a houseplant.
10
Respectfully Ross, you really and truly need a better editor. Or a different job,
Increasingly, it t is really tough to get what your point is.
Ryan to not that hard to decipher.
At all.
4
A party man? Nah. A party hack.
5
Nice portrait of a spineless politician.
7
Yes, Ryan is the perfect Party man. The Republican Party is just like Gertrude Stein's Oakland; "There is no there, there". They and he stand for nothing. They and he work to obstruct. They and he pander to whatever special interest flavor of the month begs for favor. Good riddance.
6
In other words, Ryan was a hack: Pure and simple, a bureaucratic, functionary, who bent whatever way the wind blew and did his masters' bidding, no matter how stupid, reactionary or hateful .
4
Oops...a correction is in order, Mr. DoubtHat:
You inadvertently used the words "conservative" and "compassionate" together as if they were somehow related, an obvious error. And then, again inadvertently, mentioned Ryan in the same sentence as if he had anything to do with either.
You owe it to your readers to be more careful in the future; some of them take what you write seriously.
5
Cowards always say they have no choice.
1
You'd think a pundit ever insistent on his "faith" would have more respect for the truth. And the meaning of words.
"Supply-side tax cutter", as this columnist well knows, is a euphemism for proponent of long-discredited economic policy and "entitlement reformer and free trader", while more in accord with the party line at The New York Times, represents a conscious effort to mask the cruelty and lies of Republican social policy.
You'd think burden of being a partisan and propagandist, in the face of lunatic claims and unforgivable behavior, would be a terrible injury to the soul, for those who believe in souls.
But for this columnist, a self-identified Republican, and persistent advocate for Republicans, it's no trouble at all. He's responsible for nothing and answers for nothing. Faith!
4
I do wonder if Michael Cohen got dirt on Paul Ryan for Trump and used it to keep Ryan quiet. (and the doctor who gave the great health report, and Orrin Hatch, and on and on) Why else would these people so obsequious?!?
5
Wikopedia has a list of types of Republicans:
1 Conservative wing.
1.1 Christian right.
1.2 Traditionalists/paleoconservatives.
1.3 Neoconservatives.
2 Moderate wing.
3 Libertarian wing.
4 Historical factions.
4.1 Radical Republicans.
4.2 Stalwarts.
4.3 Half-Breeds.
4.4 Progressive wing.
4.5 Reagan coalition.
No wonder they're such a mess and can never agree on anything except taking things from the poor and giving things to the rich. No wonder John Boehner cried loudly and often. No wonder Paul Ryan is running away like a puppy who just soiled the rug. What a ghastly and unpleasant bunch of yahoos.
5
4.3's for sure.
Dear Karen,
I fully agree but you should add a donor list. Then you might have more than 25 positions.
- This is no "party" anymore so nobody can be a "party man".
- Even the best manager on Earth or an absolutely spineless but extremely capable power manager like Mr. Ryan has no chance to get this in line - particularly when the most recent tweet of the 26th faction - the "Trump faction" - says: The foolish stuff this disloyal and untruthworthy Mr. X has said - the guy who had been "a absolutely great guy, one of the best, he´s my man, honestly" in the tweet the day before - is absolute nonsense, of course."
What if you had already followed the yesterday tweet in anticipated obedience as typical for people like Mr. Ryan? No chance to remind anybody of this tweet before, Mr. Tweeter in chief will never admit and will call anybody a liar if he does. If Mr. Ryan had tried his schmoozing very best to do what the yesterday tweet ordered him, he might lucky for a little "sad" before he will be allowed to leave the room then.
What if one of the donor group - one of the 26 - is calling "What did you do yesterday on this issue? We are shocked. E!" and you only did what Number 1 - 10 "desired" (Paul, only then A you understand!).
- My guess: Mr. Paul Ryan did not lie
His two daughters might have begged him to go indeed. (Daddy, before you are getting mad completely by this mess in your job and terrorize us at home PLEASE quit.) Even a turncoat is done sometimes.
Satire?!
Ryan was a political chameleon with no colors of his own; a glorified errand boy. He never was a leader. Since Reagan the Republicans haven't produced a real leader. Errand boys; Ryan, McConnell, and puppets; George W. Bush; are all we've seen.
Trump the clown, Trump the fraud, isn't a product of the Republican Party, he's the result of the Republican's utter lack of real leadership.
2
Paul Ryan hates the poor and the weak. This supposed follower of Christ cares more for the billionaire oligarchs atop our broken country than the poor unfortunate souls who were born without any resources. Oh, and he carried water for the narcissistic clown steering our country into an iceberg. I hope he lives a long time, and that his criminal negligence haunts him to the end.
2
Government policy from Fox "news" talking points...thats going to work.
Being republican has become the Cult of Deliberate Ignorance...repeating tired disproven "party" lines, over and over.
Then sitting silently as a criminal traitor occupies the WH. A republican culture of zombiehood.
You can't be president if you cheated to win. Show us the tax returns.
3
Ross Douthat is obsessed with labels: "Randian," "Reaganite," "Kempian" (huh?) . . . This dependency on reductive political short-hand is not only lazy but it also blunts his genuine insights into Paul Ryan's mercurial ascent and fall, which might be more clearly summed up as opportunistic.
2
Paul Ryan is another GOP hypocrite, plain and simple: he benefited from Social Security benefits in his youth and conveniently forgot his roots when he acquired some "power". Not too hard to do when you are a lackey of right-wing money.
He's leaving because he knows his agenda is a non-starter and he lacks the integrity to do anything else. He'll enjoy his government pension and health insurance benefits, further evidence of his hypocrisy and mendacity.
Good riddance. I just hope like the proverbial "bad penny" he won't be back.
1
Ryan is a weak, self serving Fraud. Nothing more, nothing less. The GOP poster boy for " I've got mine, so give me even more of yours ". Go away, and STAY away. Seriously.
4
Whole lot of words to say "empty suit."
3
I’m 70. Ross is a child to me. When a real democrat saw Ryan he saw a reep who lived on this earth to make rich people richer. It was his life’s mission. The rest in this childish piece is embarrassing.
3
Ryan is in that subset of persons that stupid people believe is a smart person. Funny enough, most of these alleged "smart people" are Republicans. The dumbing down of America took decades, but worked. We truly are ruled by a Moron, and his Collaborators. Seriously.
1
Ya Ross, I'm sure Pauly would have done great in the Spanish Inquisition. If only Paul had been POTUS instead of Nixon.....
It was all circumstances, the Speaker's downfall. Nothing to do with the fact that he's a "policy wonk" has absolutely no clue what he's talking about....
1
Everything about Paul Ryan was as fake as the photo of his washing of the “clean” dirty dishes at that homeless center or his sub-three hour marathon.
Douthat says “If you look at all this and see an ideologue working tirelessly for Randian ends, I think you’re daft.” Well Ross, I guess I’m “daft” ‘cause that’s exactly what I think!
5
It is abjectly stupid to vote for any politician who asserts that government is inherently incompetent. They are 100% certain to deliver on their belief.
4
HRC was pilloried for dividing Trump voters into a basket of people with legitimate grievances and the infamous "basket of deplorables." But there was a third basket -- the tribalists who voted for Trump because he was the party's nominee. These otherwise intelligent people put party before country in what was at best misplaced loyalty. Paul Ryan occupied the third basket. Unfortunately we are all in a hand basket headed for hell unless we change course this November.
2
Party weasel is more like it. The word "lying" doesn't appear anywhere in yet another worthless column by another affirmative action conservative columnist.
2
Paul Ryan ruined us as best he could. Ruined the best in us, as best he could. He is a complete hypocrite, and I cannot wait to have his sickening smirk removed from the public view. I hope fervently he does not run for President, but if he does, someone should collect all those images and make a powerful ad about who we had to live with in this era.
A total creep. There. Said it.
2
Oh, That is stupid. Why does Ross have job? The right hates him, and left does not need him to tell us a watered down version of what the right thinks.
There is one thing history will recall about Ryan. He knew Trump conspired with the Russians and did nothing. The nothing man, in his own words:
June 15, 2016
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump....Swear to God.” McCarthy
“This is an off the record . . . No leaks! . . . All right? This is how we know we’re a real family here.” Ryan
“That’s how you know that we’re tight,” Scalise
“What’s said in the family stays in the family,” Ryan.
1
Douthat finally gets one right. Who'd a thunk it???
Ryan was not a version of Kemp: Kemp was not mean spirited. Top targets for Ryan's budget knife are Medicare and Medicaid. He long challenged the need for the Social Security system, saying people should "invest" for retirement.
Well, that certainly is easy for him to say, as while the average US family of four made just $50,000, Ryan was paid $223,000 in salary and given over $1M each year to run is Congressional office (plus much more to run his Speaker's office). Thank you taxpayers.
He also married into substantial money. So yes, this always-smiling assassin of social welfare is doing just fine without it.
3
Mr. Douthat's characterization of Paul Ryan is not that far off from Paul Krugman's interpretation in that one could see what one wanted in him: A policy "wonk" to the media; a consigliere to the donor class, or a party-man of plastic conviction. Either way there is a lesson in this for non-Trumps: to be successful one needs to smile, be attractive, intelligent and not talk too much.
1
Jack Kemp was a great quarterback. As a visionary political leader, not so much.
5
For the first time in years, I find myself in total agreement with Ross in his assessment of Paul Ryan. With infinitely malleable principles, Ryan went where the party went, never leading except from behind.
Very good column.
8
The story of Paul Ryan is way more banal. He is a go a long to get along person. He went to the 2009 inauguration night conspiracy and did not have the backbone to say that what they were doing was wrong and refuse to participate.
At least we can give Boehner credit for recognizing that Frank Luntz was up to no good and refusing to attend.
11
On a crowded elevator in my office building on Thursday, the last person to enter had no room to turn around and stood facing the rest of us. One woman yelled,"Speech! Speech!" and I prompted, "Tell us your thoughts on Paul Ryan stepping down to be with his 13 year old daughter." She and everyone else burst out laughing. Yes, he cannot tell the truth about anything.
18
Paul Ryan did not work for the people of Wisconsin that voted for him - 10 times. He worked for his donors. Every decision he made was on their behalf even if it injured his constituents and the GopTaxScam did and will for decades.
30
then, why did he win reelection 9 times?
Ideology and lack of thought amongst his voters. They woke up , however. He is stepping down before they vote him out.
Supply-side tax cutter and principles just don't add up. I would change the word "principles" to "zombie ideas."
12
"Supply side economics" is nonsense to people who are highly paid to sell to difficult customers.
Ryan quit because he wanted cash in on the tax cuts he proposed and passed and nothing else.
11
You're describing a chameleon who would rather blend in with his party than operate from a set off core principals; it's clear that with his latest support for a massive tax cut that benefits primarily the rich and which has ballooned the deficit, he's not the darling fiscal conservative of "the Party" -- nor is his silence when it comes to Trump's trade war reconcile with free market conservativism and finally, playing coy and dancing away from even commenting on the grotesque hyperbole coming from Trump's twitter account show even the slightest leadership...perhaps after all he is just a party man.
9
Ryan was an opportunist. Consider that of the two parties, the GOP is wholly beholden to donors and their tools (media, think tanks), while the Dems contend with their Clinton-Schumer led sellout to donor money.
Ryan was elevated to the darling of the party not by the clamoring of the base, but because his Ayn Rand fueled thought process was a perfect fit for donors who wanted tax cuts, getting out of any public spending they felt victimized by (remember the Romney 47% pitch?) and using government to enrich themselves (contracting and military spending).
Ryan's appeal was that he was a true believer. He looked the part. His lack of studied charm was offset by his earnest seriousness. Ultimately, he was a man without a conscience. He was a wonk who reluctantly became speaker despite what happened to Boehner. During his ascent, he was the perfect boy scout at a time when the donors created a party dedicated to libertarianism and the idea that the rich earned their riches through their own wondrous talents and the poor and middle class deserved to fall from grace because they were not already rich. A party led by a generation of ladder kickers bent on destroying the American dream mythology and turning themselves and their families into entrenched royalty. It was and is a profoundly anti-democratic phenomena and he embraced being their poster boy. Being made speaker took him out of his element and ultimately saved us from his wonkish cruelty. Ryan is gone. The donors are not.
13
Paul Ryan’s ideology seems to track pretty consistently with “tax cuts.” Ross does a good job of throwing out all the voodoo phrases of the past 40 years of conservatism , “supply side” or “compassionate conservatism” but really the party’s goals have always been tax cuts and deficit spending under Republican Presidents. Reagan, Bush and Trump, three very different men and all cut taxes on the wealthy and blew up the deficit.
34
"Let bullies freeload whatever they want!" is the core Republican ideology.
2
Ryan was the quintessential Republican of modern times, albeit with a pleasing face. While a young man he used government largess to educate himself, then turned on that same government after falling deeply in love with a deeply despicable tutor, that destroyer of so many young minds, Ayn Rand. He then followed her advice, manipulating the political party of greed and hatred of government to his own ends. He did very well, for more than a little while. But the wheels have ground, and the dull comedy, the poor rotten farce, of Ryan’s life, is that he lost his moral decency, his respectability, his soul, in the service of the greatest Ayn Rand caricature of our time: Donald Trump. May all the three of them soon be forgotten in a true democratic republic regained.
36
Too wordy, too trite, unnecessarily tangled. Let’s face it: Paul Ryan is the American version of an apparatchik—mediocre, no vision, opportunist, no core beliefs, spineless who survived on shticks. Well his shtick bag is empty. Truth is both parties have his types warming up seats in Congress, do nothing, collect monthly checks and hope the public does not recognize their ineptness. Only, that the Republicans have many many more of them. Good riddance Ryan. Hopefully many more will follow suit.
33
A great piece about a small man -
But what about the utter bankruptcy of "conservative" economic ideas?
How on earth is it intelligent to allow, let alone promote vast disparities in wealth and opportunity?
30
Great piece about a small man........brilliant
But you’ll never get Ross to admit to bad conservative principles....ever
1
Ultimately, it's all about the distribution of wealth. Whether the leader is a Republican apparatchk (good choice of word by recent commenter) or a sociopathic President changes nothing. Policies that favor concentration of wealth in the 1% are at the heart of the Republican party. For the party leadership, social conservatism is primarily a tactic. Old Republican policies or "creative new ideas," we always end up in the same place.
17
"Party Man." Two words that capture a spineless, hypocritical, self-dealing, joke of a man, one who had no problem pretending he was a policy expert or inflicting pain on the poor. I almost like it; I admire brevity.
23
It's odd that Mr Douthat, a Roman Catholic, didn't mention that like John Boehner, Ryan is also a practicing Roman Catholic. John Boehner seemed to have been given license to get out of the GOP, after a pope the GOP loves to despise, gave a passionate plea about ALL that the church teaches in the well of Ryan's house. Perhaps in this Easter Season, Ryan also sees the new Heaven and the new earth, but I can't give him that much credit. It's a rare opportunity for me to say as a more progressive Roman, that I will pray for Paul. Or, better yet my thoughts and prayers go out to him, as his professional career draws to an abrupt close.
The truth is Mr Douthat, it is harder and harder to live with oneself, knowing that a party that condemns abortion, birth control, and every other aspect of loving human behavior, to have its own feckless leader, as trump is, as a pillar of morality. But, forgetting the sex stuff, the essence of catholic teaching, that staunchly differs from evangelical Protestant teaching, is the enduring tenants social and economic justice, which Paul Ryan expediently forgot. Mr Ryan, like so many republicans today, is like the Pharisees that Jesus warns us about in Matthews Gospel. Paul Ryan will be remembered for laying heavy burdens on a weary nation, and exiting when he realized he may not win re-election, and that the titanic of Trumpism, and fiscal ineptitude he aided and abetted, are headed for the proverbial iceberg. The GOP, hypocrisy in the highest!
31
"Greed is good," a GOP mantra, has been repackaged as "freedom (from taxes)" and Paul Ryan put the bow on top on his way to church.
21
If he is a party man, what does that say about the party?
24
We can all rest easy about thing. With as much passion and conviction as a wet wash cloth, there is virtually no chance we will see Ryan on Fox. Remember, this is the man who stirred millions, when in response to Trump's racist comments following the bloodshed in Charlottesville last year, declared those comments to be "unhelpful" and "unfortunate." Perhaps those would best describe his speakership as well.
19
Maybe the beginning of the end of Paul Ryan's career had its roots in a political ad which depicted a Ryan look-alike getting ready to push a helpless old lady in a wheelchair over the side of a cliff.
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Paul Ryan is quitting his position as House Speaker because he doesn't want to be held responsible for a potential Republican rout in November. Giving the Speaker's gavel back to Nancy Pelosi would be the ultimate humiliation that he'd rather not face.
14
History will be very harsh with Paul Ryan. It is much better for him that he is getting out before he gets farther behind. Who can forget his coy "I don't want to be speaker I don't want to be Speaker" of a few years ago, a strategy designed to force his Republican colleagues, who considered him "the smartest" of them all, to beg him to serve as Speaker. He got what he wanted. His epitaph? "Be careful, you might get what you wished for."
Paul's maneuvering got him Trump and a Constitutional crisis. And much like the little pig who went to market, now he is crying "wee, wee, wee all the way home."
10
It's been said that over time a person face reflects their soul. Ryan resembled a pumped up Ken of the Barbie Doll line when he arrived on the political scene years ago and, for all the outfits pundits have had him model, the same pumped up Ken of the Barbie Doll line he remains to this day.
6
The measure of Ryan's intellect is that he thought that he could meld Ayn Rand's novels into the Bible. "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: so that I canl take away their food stamps."
13
One must wonder if any of the current commentariat have actually read Ayn Rand, the way they throw references to her around so indiscriminately, particularly when dissecting Paul Ryan. This final sentence of this piece on Ryan: "...record of failure on policy and principle that he chose for himself, believing — as party men always do — that there wasn’t any choice" would have made John Galt despise Ryan, precisely, as the rest of the article details, because he stood for nothing. A man lacking in conviction, who ran with whatever part of the herd he thought was in the ascendant. Ryan, McConnell and Gingritch, more than any other Republicans, are responsible for where the US is today; not a principle between them, no moral compass to be found, no integrity to see here. They are the spawn of Wesley Mouch, Mr Thompson, Jim Taggart and Orren Boyle, not an original, creative idea among them, the ideal of the US national interest for its people a concept forever foreign to them. As McConnell declared when Obama was elected, their goal was to do everything they could to ensure he did not serve a second - they failed, but the US of today is the fallout we see from their despicable disloyalty to the American people.
14
"...he was fundamentally a party man -a...champion for whatever the institutional G.O.P. appeared to want..."
That is the fundamental point in Mr. Douthat's piece, despite all the circumlocutions surrounding it. The same point was made, more directly, by former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh regarding Devin Nunes:
"He wants to please whomever he sees as the person or people running the show."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/02/02/devin-n...
This shared trait probably explains as well as anything why Ryan, even now, cannot summon the decency to remove Nunes from his Intelligence Committee chairmanship.
At the same time, Ryan's seeming lack of the full measure of shamelessness possessed by Nunes leads some to fancy Ryan as some sort of anguished Hamlet. To paraphrase Marx, however, if Hamlet was tragedy, Ryan is farce.
9
And when you are condemned by Joe Walsh, that is the depth of of the low! If anyone remember Joe Walsh, he is one of the sleaziest men to ever hold a Congressional seat.
3
Reading Douthat describe the various possible political permutations of Paul Ryan brings to mind a Hannibal Lecter quote about the 'elaborations of bad liar.' Ryan is, and never will be anything but a facilitating hack for a burgeoning oligarchic state. All else is window dressing.
8
To condense this column: Paul Ryan is a perfect organism, always adapting to it host environment. Now, like a cicada, it will bury itself for the next few years, storing up energy, so that it may burst out among us bigger and badder than every. What a piece of work this one is.
11
On one level this analysis is perfectly plausible. Neither a leader nor an ideologue, but a "party man." Or, less generously, a flunky, or an opportunist. But from my perspective, these distinctions are meaningless in the context of Republican politics.
I don't think that Mr. Ryan, or Mr. Trump & the rest of the Republican leadership, really have ideologies. What they have are rationalizations for using government to amass wealth and power. Once you understand that, you realize that there is a deep pragmatism, even a flexibility, within the GOP. They're ALL party-men, or yes-men. One day the individual mandate is just what the insurance CEO's ordered, the next day it's socialism. One day you're "compassionate," the next you're taking away sick people's insurance. One day climate change is an urgent problem, the next it's a hoax. One day you're defending Christianity under siege, the next day you're kidnapping and torturing people. One day the rules are sacred, the next day Justice Scalia dies. The rigidity I see and despise in the GOP is not ideology, but the dogged pursuit of power. The transfer of more political and economic power and more public assets into fewer private hands is the point; everything else (principle, laws, truth) is tactical. So when racist demagoguery works better than Ayn Randian pseudo-philosophy, than racist demagoguery it is.
10
It's difficult to take seriously a man who sleeps on a cot in his office. Really, this is a man that Republicans hold forth to structure the economy and engineer tax reform?
Anyone could see the boilerplate "I want to spend more time with my family" thing coming. Pathetic.
Republicans revealed what they were made of when they chose Trump to lead their party. Rational voters possessing critical thinking abilities need to vanquish the conservative simpletons from office and place this shameful chapter of American history behind us, with the other mistakes.
202
I think it’s a positive that he sleeps on a cot in his office. I consider it downright admirable that Joe Biden took/takes the train every day. Keeping Washington in perspective is always admirable. Even Ryan’s being a good soldier is a positive. If only the rest of his party had some conception of public service we would all be better off.
2
The house speaker is the highest paid member of the House.
Why pick on Ryan's living in his office? Other House members also do that. It makes their lives less stressful. Why rent /buy a domestic residence when you won't be spending any time in it? Btw, I'm no fan of Ryan's GOP policies...
7
Ryan was the master of double-speak and the not-so-hidden agenda. At his core he was dishonest and constantly misrepresented his intentions nearly always to the disadvantage of the poor or struggling. Agree with his beliefs or not, Jack Kemp was up front and tried to make a difference for low income citizens whether they voted GOP or not. There are no Republican of Jack Kemp's ilk remaining on Capitol Hill.
4
Jack Kemp had qualities as a person, or at least as a public person, that distinguished him from both Paul Ryan and Ross Douthat. Even where their political positions might intersect.
Kemp actually excelled at something. He was a great football player. And wore his greatness well. I had huge political differences with him. But his concerns about poverty and racism were deep and were what drove him. He organized the football union. He just animated decency and compassion as a person.
At this point in their lives, they are both pretty young and can change, Ryan will be remembered for his pandering and dedication to the wealthy and his economic assault on everyone else and Ross for his almost maniacal obsession on controlling women's reproductive and sexual lives. Everyone else's also. But not with the same ferocity and hatred.
15
This is a very kind description of Paul Ryan. It comes just short of comparing him the Speaker of party and no person, Denny Hastert. Ryan has been simply not present for most of the major conflicts of the last few years--Trump, Freedom Caucus, budget, etc. He chose to duck and hide from every conflict, covering his absence with charts and graphs, and mastering the appearance of regret he did not actually feel. The fact that he was the best the party could provide says oceans about the lack of both talent and desire for accomplishment.
13
Paul Ryan was a true 'back room' guy, picking them up and laying them down for whoever was in charge. Always the Indian and never a chief.
He had a thankless job without the ability to make it more than that. Many of us are like that. In a certain way it is all rather sad, but the important thing is to do the best one can. And on that basis , I think, he was a success.
We call these people "Wendehals" here, hardly to translate as "turncoat".
A Wendehals is a person who is changing opinions like clothes just to keep his rank in a sub-chief position. To be only Indian doesn´t pay. Until 90 socialist, then ardent apologist of Western democracy, (until 45 something something different) but always the "boss of I-don´t-know."
So Mr. Ryan had been a Reaganist, a GWBush guy, a Tea party man, then the hope of establishment and in the next moment he felt Mr. Trump prevailed his most capable policy enabler. In each case he was acting for interest groups steering politics from outsideas extremely high skilled power manager. This had been the only way of survival in his positions he would have lost in this very moment when he had tried to set an own agenda. Mr. Ryan would have get "boehnered" in the very first moment he was going be leader by setting an own agenda. He was the first to know - as all Wendehälse do. That´s how they can keep their sub chief positions even after several regime changes under circumstances they can´t never change.
Dear Mr. Douthat: Why you as a highly educated member of the Ivy league elite have realized this obvious classic pattern, catching the eye in the very hour of doing a research about Mr. Ryan only now when his era in office is over and not when I started to read your columns in early 2016? Even most of American commentators knew it already then.
It´s "ad personam" I know. But it really makes think.
1
In other words, Ryan was cast into the role of a leader when he's a career follower. Why anybody thought that would work is a mystery.
24
We spend trillions on purposeless and unwinnable wars. We dole out millions to the wealthy. We subsidize corporations with untold and unmentionable loopholes. We allow companies to get away with paying little or, in some cases, nothing. We tolerate politicians' spending piles on privileges. We let military providers charge at will.
And then we cry about deficits and debts, and want people who are literally eking out a living to do with less. That's what entitlement reform means: reduce their SS, work extra years, less health coverage. While this may eventually be inevitable, let's start the cutting from the top where the loss of a few percentages won't even be felt. Ryan lived a fantasy of reform, but he never approached it.
29
Entitlement reform is the appealing phrase for policies that will reduce the standard of living and the lifespan of the poorer half of the country. An honest presentation of these policies would be that those who do not arrange their lives so they can provide for health care when they get sick and savings to live on when they can no longer work, do not deserve to live on in good health, and those who did so arrange their lives should not have to support them. Of course, an analysis of income distributions in the country shows that millions of people will not have the resources to make such arrangements. But this is not a problem because any given individual does not have to be one of these people.
It is much better to sell these policies by talking about entitlement reform and the mounting national debt.
23
Ross, I'd be interested in your comments on what Prof. Krugman called Ryan's "magic asterisks" - you know, those "to be determined" items in his proposed budgets that represented the cuts that would be needed to make the budget balance - as he said it would. Any comments?
24
The GOP's New Deal was to give permanent tax cuts to real estate developers, hedge fund managers, and the 1% and to give temporary tax crumbs to the everyone else.
54
So if Paul Ryan was not a leader, but a follower of the extreme drift rightward, then who is responsible for the rightward shift of the party and the country? Many of us believe the right wing media has played an enormous role.
And don't tell me it started with the public itself. If a political pro like Paul Ryan shifts beliefs depending on who is around him, isn't it clear that most people are susceptible to what they hear from others as well?
29
Ronald Reagan, not Paul Ryan, really started the mainstream descent into a libertarian dystopia. Ryan was only a career politician, a self-promoter who never had a real job, and when he becomes a lobbyist, never will have a real job.
Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, and Ronald Reagan all made the same mistake: if full-on communism is wrong, then (they thought) completely unregulated and free-market capitalism must be right. The answer to any real adult is the balance in between the two, as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been pointing out for years.
193
Hear, hear!
8
Ryan is telegenic, young looking in a backdrop of old and debauched. That he could put sentences together, some with numbers, was enough to lend a patina of stature. Emphasis on patina. This is not to say that we don't need conservative stature. We desperately need a positive alternative to smug identity-speak.
32
Paul Ryan is an admirer of Ayn Rand's work.
He should become familiar with Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", instead.
1
With you until the last three words -
What on earth is "smug identity-speak?" And why do people continuously call Democrats, liberals, leftists and progressives "smug?"
I don't get. It's insulting; obviously - but also it's complete and utter nonsense. Women, religious minorities, immigrants, people of color and the LGBTQ communities aren't "smug;" we are struggling.
2
Way too much credit. Paul is, was, always will be an empty suit. He won a politicians lottery, born at the right time and right congressional district.
61
Ryan was not born to the right congressional district. It was made for him by adding significant swaths of conservative voters in the few years following his first election. As the Republican party became ascendent, so did Ryan. Ryan cannot carry his hometown in an election.
26
The thing that annoyed me the most about Mr. Ryan was how he would be described as an expert on policy when it was obvious that he did not have an original thought. Supply side economics had been proven worthless before he came along and giving billions to the rich so you would have a reason to cut entitlements (including entitlements that he found useful before he got rich) does not make you an original thinker. Greed and a lack of empathy are not new ideas.
146
I don't mind this column because it is well documented that Ryan is indeed a party guy. He understands party economics and politics. Whether they make sense is beyond his skill set. He just knows what he is supposed to say and do. This is why Republicans love him, but he is ultimately a failure for the majority of US citizens.
41
Ryan pursued his goals as diligently as one can, without actually reading a book or checking to see if numbers add up. No, he is not an ideologue, just an empty braggart who claimed that he ran 26 mile marathons in two hours. Those numbers never added up either, but the supine press never bothered to check.
49
Paul Ryan's policies are based exclusively on taking and borrowing money from working Americans to distribute to American Oligarchs. His tax "reform" is a crippling blow to the American economy and health of the country. Few people have done more harm to the country.
Despite this, I suspect Mr. Ryan is a decent man. How sad that the country would be better had he never been elected.
20
To a certain extent all politicians are hypocrites; it goes with the trade they are in.
Ryan wore his catholic faith on his sleeve but forgot about the Sermon on the Mount for the Darwinian philosophies of Ayn Rand masked as entitlement "reform".
His legacy will be as an enabler of the worst POTUS in modern history and the owner of tax cuts that benefited the 2% Republican donors and left the rest of us with trillions of debt.
Only time will show us his fate and place in history but he forgot a basic premise in philosophy that evil means lead to evil ends.
48
Yeah, right. Paul Ryan is loyal to two entities: Koch Industries and himself. Everybody else can eat S and die.
143
In 1960 and 1964 Karl Hess helped write the GOP platform and wrote Goldwater's acceptance speech. I think Ross has Paul Ryan pegged. I wonder also whether Paul Ryan hadn't read enough Karl Hess to imagine himself the the the libertarian philosopher, motorcycle mechanic, anarchist anti-tax warrior that was Karl Hess.
2
What kind of 'Party Man' leaves his party in such a mess? In his tenure as speaker, he may have been able to push thru his taxcut agenda (and nothing else), but he has not done anything for the party except protect Trump and Nunes. He is in fact a politician who works for the rich and powerful and grovels before the richest of them - he cares far less about the future of his party.
45
Ryan could walk upright and make a fire, so yeah, among the GOP intelligentsia of our time, he looked like DaVinci. The Republicans have always elevated salesmen to prominence, not thinkers, and Ryan's gift was that big-blue-eyed earnestness of the favorite grandson getting Nanna to sign over the house to him. And yeah, Ross, he lacked principles.
141
Dude, loved this line: "Ryan could walk upright and make a fire." Good work!
6
Douthat describes a Paul Ryan that is small. I think that is very apt. Just judging him by his own cover, his actions did not match his words.
He purported to help the poor by cutting programs that supported them and increased their taxes. He supposedly fixed the deficit and debt by reducing our tax income but cut none of unnecessary subsidies to big corporations. He talked of honor and values and stood silently by while Trump abused them. He could not even perform his constitutional duty as Speaker of the House, exercise oversight to a swampy executive branch. He did the opposite of what he said.
Worst, he is a fake conservative. Although I am a progressive, I recognize the importance of having two healthy parties because this is how our country is set up. Paul Ryan, being the leader of his party and its young blood, he lacked the vision and courage to get his own house in order for the good of both his party and country.
40
Ryan was always referred to by the Party Men as the intellectual touchstone of the Tea Party movement.
Remember the "Ryan Budget" from a decade ago? Ten pages of cribbed Reaganomics rehashed.
The problem Ross, is not in your blue eyed Star; it is in you blue eyed Star's ideas, which have failed anywhere and everywhere they have been attempted.
But nice try at reframing him as a Rockefeller Republican. No one's gone that far before in their contortionists to save the Speaker's legacy.
37
Let's not forget that when candidate Trump displayed his racist tendencies by criticizing a latino-sounding-named judge in the Trump University fraud case, it was Paul Ryan who described Trump's remarks as "the textbook definition of racism". Very few other Republicans rose up to the challenge of criticizing Trump so unequivocally.
Let's also remember that when the Access Hollywood tapes broke the news, it was Paul Ryan who, in protest, refused to accompany candidate Trump at a rally in Wisconsin, his own State. Again, Ryan displayed a degree of integrity that other Republicans failed to display.
Since Newt Gingrich's fall, Republicans never had a better Speaker than Paul Ryan.
3
Ryan's responses to Trump's racism and the Access tapes make his subsequent abandonment of these values all the more appalling. From his subsequent actions (for it is through a person's actions that we see their character), it would be reasonable to conclude that Ryan's protest at Trump's comments were sadly echoing the limp protests around him, which, as a leader, he should have championed. Alas, as noted in other comments, he is just an empty suit.
That you link his performance to that of the despicable Gingritch shows how completely you fail to see his total lack of integrity and moral turpitude.
7
You say, "Let's not forget," but actually, I already had. Thanks for these reminders.
1
With respect, that ain't sayin' much.
1
There is no Republican Party anymore, just the Trumpican Party. Of course, Ryan has no place in the TP, no one but abject Trump sycophants, cultists, and shadows have places. Even those occupy a constant revolving door, where for several months they might think they are moving high in Trump's eyes, but in reality are useful tools for the moment. It is not just that everything and everyone is destroyed by Trump -- look at that "how great thou art" Cabinet meeting he held, where the gushing praise could not be overblown enough. Look also at the daily lies and testimonies of the White House press conference where anyone who questions the dogma is called out for their question a sbeing too ridiculous to even answer.
In such a party, who remains? The TP exists to extol the merits, genius, stability, and vision of Trump, Trump, Trump, and to echo his tweets of the day or views of the moment, even if they are diametrically opposed to something he may have claimed six months ago.
Currently they are all chanting about the evils of the FBI, but a few days ago it was about the invasion of the caravan (about 150 refugee children and their families as of last count), and before that it was the dangers of NFL players dropping to a respectful knee in silent protest which evidently shocked the foundation of Trumpicans, until the next earth tremor caused by black or brown people or those in blue states.
Extinct dinosaurs and their keepers roam Trumpican world.
16
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC did a brilliant show on Ryan which showed his glory days as a rising star, fiscal policy wonk, boy wonder of conservatism. Turns out he was just a timid man who knew his future paycheck depended on appeasing the greed of the 1%. Doesn't have the guts to stand up to either the "freedom caucus" or to Trump. Wants out so he can cash in. Big phony, big nothing.
91
Operative words are "cash in". With his credentials he will increase his net worth many fold by the time Trump finishes his term. Sadly he greatly benefited by many of the programs he wants to erase.
24
I keep imagining these Republican leaders if Trump was shooting people in the street or rounding up every Muslin or Mexican as suits his impulses on any given day. These men would say nothing. Their time has long past to emerge as "a Republican savior." Each day this silence grows more unimaginable. Each day their lifetime of white, saving grace for the 1% policies in state budgets, the federal budgets, the Supreme Court, and now the rule of law, deeply offends everyone. We have never needed ourselves so much since WWII. All of us, together, must rid ourselves of Trump's amoral dysfunctional, political party for our children and the world's future. Too many lies, and too much deceit, marked with passive cruelty and rank hypocrisy is inflicting explicit American trauma. Trump has engulfed the Republican Party in flames. Paul Ryan knew this was coming. Yet, it became clear he would never do something, and as you state correctly, this will be the historical truth of his faded life; The Party Man of Nothing.
21
In other words, where most of us end end up: back at square one, but with less pretense.
2
"Entitlement reform" is just a euphemism for destruction of the social safety net that Republicans and their benefactor plutocrats have been trying to destroy since the New Deal. The only entitlements that he is in favor of are the ones that enrich his donors. The only principles that have guided him are greed and the lust for power. Like his muse, Ayn Rand, he believes that rich people are rich and poor people are poor because they deserve to be.
36
Have you actually read "Atlas Shrugged"? Ryan represents everything Rand condemns; John Galt would detest the man precisely because he has no principles and stands for nothing and never created anything.
Dr. Krugman had it right from the beginning: Paul Ryan simply understood little to nothing about policy or economics. He was a creature of bad reporting and, in the case of many Republicans, wishful thinking. If he were capable of introspection, he'd probably be wondering how it was anyone ever thought he understood anything more than where the power and money were.
44
The tax "reform" was not reform, Mr. Douthat, It was a tax cut for billionaires and the 1% and if anything, tax welfare for American corporations. Shameful, if he could ever feel shame.
I will remember Speaker Ryan as a con-man, as frightening as any other extremist in the Republican Party these days, which seems to mean all Republicans these days.
I remember what a phony he was during his vice-presidential run when he and his wife and kids donned aprons and pretended to clean clean pots in a soup kitchen:
http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-ryan-wash-dishes-2012-10
What a great example for a Dad to teach his kids how to stage a phony photo op.
Not once did Paul Ryan stand up to President Trump, except on the day that the Access Hollywood tape dropped on a Friday in October 2016. Suddenly, Ryan decided he couldn't be seen in public with Trump at a campaign rally in Wisconsin the next day, and he disinvited Trump to the rally.
Such "courage" was short-lived and Ryan came crawling back to kiss the ring of Trump as soon as Trump won.
At least Ryan was ineffectual in trying to take away Medicare and Social Security from old people, even though he pivoted immediately from his tax giveaway to his phony concern about "entitlements" the very next day after he passed the tax give away.
Good riddance, spineless, feckless Ryan. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
74
It seems paradoxical to say that Paul Ryan is a man of principle at the same time he appears to be, tries to be whatever other people want him to be. He strikes me as not particularly bright but well spoken, a born follower; in other words, a perfect politician.
30
Ryan's family could have afforded to send him to any private college, including the Ivies, if he'd had the brains to get in. Instead, he had to settle for relative safe mediocrity as a frat boy at Miami of Ohio. That tells you all you need to know about his intellect and his moral values.
1
MEM, We all are in deep trouble if anyone even vaguely like Mr Ryan is "a perfect politician." A perfect Quisling, Judas, Toady, Spineless sycophant, yes he is, but we -- the world -- need the very best politicians we can find and they cannot be any of the foregoing sludge.
If you want to live in a peaceful, prosperous society (anywhere), you're going to have to work out a definition of "politician" that means a person you can vote for and you're going to have to WORK to find and promote those people.
The Paul Ryans of the world are products of lazy voters as much as of soul-less scheming.
But, as Trump said, bad press is better than none.
And Trump’s 24/7 bad press, literally tweeting at 3 am, is taking all of the oxygen out of the room — for everyone, in either party.
The Democrats are going to have to come up with their ABT alternative pretty soon.
And if you have to be a billionaire to play at this level now, the choices are pretty slim.
But I like what the Dems said to Zuckerberg.
We need new anti-monopoly laws, against Facebook, Google, Amazon, as well as privacy protection.
What Ryan did not get, is that if you want globalization, you need more (not fewer) societal support programs, in education, health, and infrastructure, to better share the profits of globalization, which are now being hoarded by the winner-take-all elite.
19
It all could have been summarized in one sentence: Ryan is an unprincipled party hack, who has been prepared to follow whatever course would keep him in play, regardless of its impact upon the nation and the vulnerable, all the while wrongfully courting the label of knowledgeable and moral statesmen. Dante knew where such people belonged.
177
Specifically, inside the city of Dis in the burning tombs of the hypocrites.
6
This article touches on a critical larger question: Who are the people now being pushed out of Republican office?
Are they the establishment types such as Ryan who opposed Trump? Are they the Tea Party and other wild men who supported Trump? Both?
We hear Republicans are having problems, but which Republicans? All equally, or only some?
It looks to me as if Trump's hold on the Republican Party is increasing.
That may cause the party overall to lose some power, but the remains will be more supportive of Trump, even more wildly partisan than before.
Could Republicans lose the majority on one or both houses of Congress, yet still behave even worse?
13
Never underestimate how badly a contemporary Republican can behave when forced to choose between Party and country.
That said, Mark, the short answer to your initial question is Tea Party-ers that don't have an appetite for Trump's atavism (Ryan being one) or for a serious electoral challenge back home (when they've been used to easy victories in manufactured districts).
Those that are left--supporting Trump--are people you used to see handing out fliers in parking lots. Once strategic gerrymandering has been brought under control, that is where they will return.
14
Excellent
Why not? They got where they are today, their greatest level of electoral strength in almost a century, by behaving badly.
They hoisted nooses and placards of baboons that looked like the president and were rewarded with the House in 2010.
They shut down the government in 2013 and were rewarded with the Senate in 2014.
They ran, unarguably, the most contemptible candidate in history in 2016 and were rewarded with the White House.
That they can do so well by behaving so badly explains a lot why Democrats can't win.
4
Pretty insightful analysis by Ross. When you put aside the gibbering excess one hears from the extreme left, what Ryan really is … Ross has captured pretty well. A party man. My initial reaction to his announced retirement was outrage, but that’s evolved. Ryan is a man who has burned out and who has concluded that what the party needs right now, including some means of interacting at once effectively AND honorably with Trump, is beyond his skills and passion; and that the party needs to find someone as Speaker with different skills and who retains a passion for taking the Republican Party forward in the age of Trump.
He might also have been primaried by a more conservative Republican for his Wisconsin seat; and, with an even more conservative Republican vying, the eventual winner of that seat could well be a Democrat – could be a Democrat even against Ryan, which would make him only the second incumbent Speaker to lose his seat.
Ryan should have remained as House chairman of tax-and-budget stuff. In the end, that was the limit of his capacity for vision and leadership. He was a valuable contributor, but not a trail-blazer.
Now that Ryan is a lame duck, thinking proceeds to who takes his place. Kevin McCarthy? I certainly hope not. As I consider the options in the House, I’m not enthusiastic. House Republicans should broaden their thinking on a unique option, given that the Speaker does not need to be a Member of the House.
2
He didn't even carry Janesville in the last election. Chances are pretty good he would have lost this November. His legacy is the tax bill, which in a year will be causing a lot of financial problems for a lot of people, many of him are "on his side". He's getting out while the getting is still possible.
102
lee4713:
You must be talking about Trump, for if Ryan hadn't carried Janesville in the last election, he wouldn't have been re-elected to his House seat.
The tax bill, according to the CBO in testimony just this past week, has stimulated new investment in the U.S. even greater than Republicans had expected, and is projected to stimulate far more. We'll see what the economy looks like as we get to November -- it's likely to be extremely strong, benefiting millions of regular wage earners, and it's likely to have a significant impact on the midterms.
This citation regarding CBO forecast says exact opposite--tax cuts will lead to a sea of red ink.
I'm reading stock buybacks, lack of wage increase.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tax-cuts-will-lead-to-sea-of-red-ink-c...
Your citation please?
1
To paraphrase Churchill: some men abandon their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party. Ryan, having no principles, never faced these choices.
308
The man described by Douthat sounds very much like an apparatchk, an individual committed to the welfare of the party and only secondarily to the interests of the citizenry. As such, Ryan was ill-suited to play the role of leader.
A man with his temperament would not rein in his more conservative members of the caucus, much less the adolescent in the White House. His obsession with tax cuts for the wealthy, moeover, blinded him to the need for a broader agenda that might help the very voters who helped account for Republican victories in recent elections.
His dedication to the party converted him into a lackey to the party donors and contributed to the crisis currently facing the GOP.
Leaders don't allow their organization to be hijacked by outsiders with their own agendas. Ryan's failure to prevent Trump's takeover of the GOP has almost certainly damaged the party for a generation, all in exchange for a tawdry tax cut. The next generation of Republicans may consider this a bad deal.
60
I read an op-ed speculating that Ryan could be stepping down to avoid the stench of the current administration (without confronting it) so that he may then return to run for President in 2020 untarnished. If that’s the case, I hope voters remember that he cut and ran when opposition was most needed.
113
Ryan may run in 2024. In fact, I suspect he will. 2020? No way. He never had the guts to stand up to Trump. There is no way that he would actually challenge him. Even if he did, Trump would squish him like the bug he is.
2
I recently read that Paul Ryan began work in D.C. at age 22 and through various reincarnations, never left except to campaign for office. He never worked for a living outside the confines of a city festering with self-indulgence, syncophancy, and one-upsmanship in theoretical debates that gives flesh to the phrase "angels dancing on the head of a pin", allowing the rest of us to understand why so many things go wrong, so many ideals become flat, why so much corruption prevails, and why lobbyists realistically believe that they, not Congress, write the laws, articulate the issues, and decide policies that form the culture of Congress and our politics.
It always seemed to me that if you truly believe in some economic ideal, as Ryan did, you would beta test it in the real world yourself, not read what others thought might happen. If you want to understand why the middle class and its ideals are flat-lining, you live and work with the middle class every day, and maybe then go to Congress. Would you go to a high priced restaurant where the chef had never cooked a meal, learning his trade from solely from books. Would you hire a plumber who never plunged a toilet. While this ideal has serious limitations, it does help to identify both the problem and the remedy after your hands get dirty.
Ryan failed, creating a hydra-headed monster the rest of us have to fix. Maybe, if he finds a job where he's expected to have lunch with real people once in awhile, he'll see the problem.
52
Oh, poor guy, he's had such a difficult life. Give me a tremendous break. He spent his entire Career making LIFE more difficult for the poor and middle class. His only regret is his inability to totally eliminate any and all safety net programs. In a past life, he would have been a very enthusiastic and effective Tax Collector, for a feudal King. And working on commission, of course. Personally, I'd be happy to never see, or hear him again. But that's just me. Seriously.
347
Mr 2.
1
Ryan gets to keep his 20 year pension calculated according to his high 3 year speaker salary which Trump is trying to diminish.
What a brave soul. Private Ryan saved himself. Will not be missed.
123
You know my corporation's pension has a calculation to reduce the amount I am "entitled" to for every year between my retirement age and 65. At that rate Ryan would get only about 25% of full age benefits.
With so many not running for re-election we could save a bundle!
4
Ryan's philosophy, illustrated by the recent tax cut legislation signed by POTUS, was to add more to the abundance of the well-heeled, and to do that by taking from the poorest Americans, all under the guise of "entitlement reform." That perverted philosophy of comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, a philosophy inspired by Ayn Rand, defined progress for him.
Although I wish him well in his retirement, think the appropriate comment regarding his retirement as Speaker of the House of Representatives is: good riddance.
88
Paul Ryan, THE VICTIM.
"An unhappy end to his career was all-but-forordained."
If only he were born in another era. If only the GOP were not like an air boat with a fire in it's propeller. If only the 1990's had not turned into the 21st century. And of course, if only Trump were not president.
Whatever happened to the idea of Personal Responsibility?
164
Personal responsibility? The GOP always screams about it, but watch them run and duck for cover whenever one of their own screws up - then, it's justified and rationalized as "well, everyone makes mistakes" and "My God believes in forgiveness"
4
"If you look at all this and see an obsessive ideologue working tirelessly for Randian ends, I think you’re being daft"
Considering that immediately after the House passed its version of the federal tax law slashing taxes for corporations and plutocrats, House Speaker Paul Ryan collected nearly $500,000 in campaign contributions from Charles Koch, the suspicion is not daft, it is logical.
The brothers Koch make no secret of their randiness for a Randian libertarian revolution in the U.S. and have been working for it tirelessly and generously, particular through millions of dollars directly to their boy, Paul Ryan.
It's not so daft to imagine Ryan passing a tax bill that balloons the deficit to justify shrinking the federal government. It has been the Koch strategy for 30 years.
261
Now that you mention it... since Ryan will not be campaigning what happens to the $500K?
2
Ryan raises funds not just for his own elections but for the entire GOP. When the Kochs give it to him they know he will use it to prop up politicians who will support the Koch agenda. I'm sure his rewards will continue even after he leaves office- that is one reason we so desperately need serious campaign finance reform.
Short answer: NO personal use.
More generic answer:
There are strict FEC guidelines when it comes to extra campaign money. They can donate an unlimited amount to a charity or political party. They can also, within limits, make contributions directly to other candidates. A campaign committee can give up to $2000 per election to each candidate. If the committee is converted into a political action committee, the limit jumps to $5000 – but there are rules as to what is a PAC.
What candidates cannot do with leftover money is use it for personal expenses. Believe it or not, retiring federal lawmakers used to be able to pocket extra cash and use it for cars, vacations, clothes, whatever — but that changed in 1989 with the passage of the Ethics Reform Act.
The timing of Ryan’s departure announcement coincided with the leaks from Comey’s book. He obviously got an advance copy.
23
You say it in a very round-about way but essentially you agree w/ those of us who vilify his positions on "entitlements" (your word, not one I would choose) that the man had/has no spine.
51
If you prefer a word other than "entitlements" (i.e., benefits to which you are entitled by virtue of having paid into them), the GOP will be happy to come up with a term that suggests precisely the opposite.
5
In other words, as a great many other pundits at long last recognized, Ryan followed the lead of the tribe.
And the tribe could not care less about issues.
It only cares about identity and emotions.
Which means the tribe is, in turn, easily led by whomever best plays the emotional tune of the day.
The Koch Brothers, W, Murdoch, Coulter & Limbaugh, Alex Jones... Steve & Donald...
35
Ryan stood for about four things--cut taxes (but mostly to the wealthy and their businesses; he clearly didn't care about the middle class), cut Social Security, cut Medicare and the ACA, and cut other social and education programs.
This is what passes for a "deep thinker" in the GOP these days. Cut every benefit they can to the middle class and poor and let's give more money back to the Kochs, Mercers, Schwartzmans, Wynns, Adelsons and the like. Because these benevolent billionaires are going to create jobs with them despite virtually no evidence this "trickle down" theory has ever worked in the past.
But Ryan is really about using the tax cuts to starve the government so all non-military programs must be cut in the future. That's the deep thought we got from Paul Ryan.
Good riddance, Mr. Ryan. Please go back to Wisconsin and work on cutting state and local programs--like the budgets for the schools your kids attend (assuming they even go to public schools). Leave the rest of us alone. Don't let the rotunda door hit you on the way out.
208
That's already being done by Scotty Walker, who is wholly owned by the Koch Bros.
13
Yes, a party man without any kind of principles. Pretty much the same as a flim flam man.
90
It is easy to see that there is something wrong with Trump, but guys like Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich have done much more to increase the national debit, and 10 or 15 years from now that will be the real issue, the national debt.
138
Ross, you left out a few adjectives in this long, but (to me) inaccurate portrait of Paul Ryan.
Assuming you're right that Ryan mirrored whatever era he was in, aiming to please rather than protest, well, there's a name for that: spineless.
It's one thing to be flexible, but quite another to be so malleable that one might thing that your only instinct is survival.
The other words I think best defines the departing speaker are hypocrite and opportunist. I mean, who can forget his rejection of the very types of programs that helped his family survived following the death of his dad. And, never ever forget how he polished a pot or two in that soup kitchen as long as the camera ran, but was first to run out when it stopped.
Ryan's fame was free-floating, sort of like a Rorschach image on which Republicans could project their fondest conservative hopes.
Liberals knew better: a man who will stand for anything stands for nothing.
480
As Theodore Roosevelt said of William McKinley, Ryan has the backbone of a chocolate eclair.
56
"Spineless". That was always the first thing I would think whenever I saw Paul Ryan's smug face on TV or in the news.
Such a weak and awful, spineless man...
22
Ryan also was willing to stretch the truth more than your average person to make himself appear better than he was. He said he had run a 2:59 marathon when his real time was 4:01. -- nearly a 50% improvement toward world-class time. Not an important matter, to be sure, but it reminds me of the saying "someone who will lie about little things will lie about big things, too."
24
And Ryan will no doubt ride off into the sunset and receive a nice lobbyist position or financial services job while also collecting a fat government pension and healthcare.
282
No serious business would pay for his advice, but they will fork over big bucks for his contacts!
31
Or, being only 48, a lucrative wonk sinecure for some far right, Koch funded propaganda machine, in the hopes of emerging once again in the future as the "wise man" savior of the Trump-destroyed G.O.P. The dream never dies!
3
Wow. Even though you accurately point out Ryan’s fecklessness you ultimately let him completely off the hook.
“But in a dispensation where the G.O.P. was leaderless, rudderless, yawing between libertarian and populist extremes, he was never the kind of figure who could impose a vision on the party — nor would he would break with the party when it seemed to go insane.”
He was a chairman of Ways and Means, a vice presidential candidate and the Speaker of the House and was a prodigious fundraiser for the GOP. He was the (presumed) leader of his party and failed utterly in exercising that leadership and speaking truth to power while he pursued his draconian efforts to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and upend the social safety net.
518
Now that he’s announced his retirement from Congress, one hopes he takes the steps of the principled man he’s depicted to be and confront the ills of his party and his nation, especially the President. However, the financial incentives to remain silent are likely too great and Ryan’s principles to malleable to make that hope a reality.
42
Sir,
You are utterly and completely correct regarding your assessment of the chances of Mr. Ryan offering an honest appraisal of the president. He took pains to avoid any but muted criticism while in power. He sure will not do it while raking in the big bucks in the private sector.
If we are looking for a profile in courage in Mr. Ryan-wrong choice in office or otherwise.
May be he will behave just like his predecessor, John Boehner,who was totally against marijuana legalisation while in office, but now ... Boehner's on the Board of a company which grows marijuana, and surprise, surprise, he now favours total legalisation. Such a class act these Republican speakers way back to Gingritch!! Such integrity NOT!
I will long remember Paul Ryan for his attempts to remove health care coverage from families other than his own.
838
I will remember him along with Mitch as enabler's of Trumps's running rampant with no Congressional oversight.
43
"This is not to say that he lacked principles." Really? Then let me say it: Ryan lacked principles.
A preference is not a principle. 9 terms in Congress and 11 paragraphs in your column and I do not see a single example of Ryan showing anything approaching a "principle".
Of course that does make Ryan a prime example of a Republican "Party Man" to whom even the congressional Oath of Office to defend the Constitution is considered nothing more than a loose guideline, to be ignored when convenient or profitable.
481
And yet, Father Douthat, there is always a choice in human life, whether you're a politician or not, to tell the unvarnished truth...or to varnish the truth with cheap political paint...to be sober and responsible...or to be irresponsible with a wink and a smile...to be sane when your party goes insane...or to just going along with the insanity...to exit the madhouse or to enjoy the mad ride.
Ryan stepped off the insane GOP merry-go-round a little late.
The only reason Paul Ryan had the semi-appearance of being 'normal' is because his party is a radical, regressive house of horrors.
Are there any other major political parties in the civilized world that champion science denial, contraception denial, healthcare denial, evolution denial, green energy denial and denial of basic voting rights while ironically waving the flag and chanting 'free-dumb' until its voter base is hypnotized and its IQ collapsed into a sewer of irrational white spite toward modernity ?
Paul Ryan is one of many Republican nihilists happily working for greedy billionaires while America's IQ, infrastructure, common good and democracy collapse from 0.1% corruption.
His major accomplishment as Speaker was to paint the toenails of the 1% a brighter shade of gold with the 2017 1% Christmas Gift Tax Cut Law and to charge it to a middle-class credit card.
He's a man without a conscience, devoid of morality, a fake Catholic and a phantom of a human being.
Part of America's worst Republican generation.
890
Thank you for this. A pretty boy who somehow came across as measured and moderate and yet was as you say "without a conscience, devoid of morality, a fake Catholic and a phantom of a human being".
45
Good comment, but please stop with the "free-dum." There is a great picture of the real Paul Ryan on the front page of newyorkmagazine.com.
6
Last year, when a health care reform bill died in the House, Paul Ryan chalked up the defeat to "growing pains" of going from a minority to a governing party. But minority parties are still part of governance! Ryan, who championed the dozens of attempts at repealing the ACA, did so without hammering out a viable alternative. He represented the "party of no," not an entity of finding solutions.
This wasn't about Ryan's principles being lost to hyper partisanship; this was about him having never been worthy of power to begin with.
203
Ryan is a party man, all right. And I’m glad the party’s over. This simpering apologist for bad ideas and even worse leaders has done nothing to make the country safe or prosperous. He’s the policy wonk who came out with an economic plan that was strewn with asterisks where numbers should have been. It’s good to see he’ll be an asterisk in the future story that is written about our country.
I’ve about had it with Republicans and their love of “entitlement reform.” This deceptive phrase tries to make the benefits people paid for all their lives seem like gifts to the undeserving. And they mean “reform” in the same sense that an atomic bomb reformed Hiroshima.
His ultimate embrace of a lying scumbag of a presidential candidate says more about him than his early distaste for the man. But he ultimately played ball with a crotch-groping moron and used the chaos he created to push through a ruinous tax plan that uses middle class money to bolster the bank accounts of billionaires. Talk about entitlements. It’s a bonus for Republicans that this plan will bankrupt the country at just about the time Democrats regain control.
This compassionate conservative also tried to destroy Obamacare, which would have removed the only health care option that millions of people depended upon. For shame.
So farewell, Mr. Speaker. Don’t let the Senate chamber door hit you on the way out.
691
"Simpering" is le mot juste to describe the descending Speaker's smug puss in the photo accompanying Douthat's treacly piece.
"Senate", however, is not the term that identifies the Congressional chamber he's exiting. It's the other one....
19
Another keeper by the man with the magic hands.
Your intro paragraph is unimpeachable: cynical, funny, accurate, and makes great use of the article's headline. Bravo!
Your second paragraph with the Hiroshima reference is off-the-charts funny. May be in questionable taste, but, hey, that's where I live. Impeccable taste, in my opinion, is the first casualty of political humor. And good riddance.
Your third paragraph is good, too, especially the truth about Dems having to clean up after the party is over. (You're done with the funny warm-up and begin tightening the noose -- your natural-born killer's instinct coming into play here.)
Fourth paragraph: the "For shame" is, well, weak. We can make our own evaluation: Understatement is always better than overkill, yes? You taught us that.
Final paragraph: uh, a little embarrassing. A trite, hackneyed kiss-off to a sterling comment, or, rather, comments, like this just hurts the whole piece and disappoints your many fans, of which I am chief. Nonetheless, you are still the best of the best, and, of course, no fallible human being can be expected to achieve infallible perfection. We all look forward to your next piece; but, until then, I will re-re-re-read this one: good job, sir.
All the best.
Postscript confession: You always hurt the one you love.
15
@Inchoate But Earnest,
Whoops. I could say that was a typo, but in fact it was a braino.
Hopeless Ryan has been the epitome of the political hack, Republican division, ready to trade in whatever principles he ever had (or claimed to have) in order to keep his career going. Where are the people who dive into the political arena strictly because they have a vision for the country that they're personally determined to see imposed? As is the case with so many others, a career in politics (complete with some degree of celebrity) becomes an end in and of itself- just do what you need to do in order to build up your campaign fund and keep on getting reelected over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I'm sure the congressman, having seen the writing on the wall in his Wisconsin electoral district, has already marked out his territory as an up-and-coming lobbyist for the Brothers Koch. Perhaps he'll even get to see his kids every other weekend, while they're still young enough not to be appalled by what Daddy did on behalf of Trump the Insult Comic President.
122
From what I've read, his kids are teenagers and he spends every (long) weekend at home.
Paul Ryan, fake "idea man" of the GOP came up with some dippy ideas in his time, perhaps none worse than vouchers for privatized Medicare. His "plan" was to limit the value of vouchers so that over time seniors would gradually be forced to pay more for premiums.
Imagine yourself a Millennial or younger, with a lifetime of Medicare premiums to support current seniors but looking forward to a much diminished Medicare plan when you retire. (Ditto Social Security)
This kind of slow starvation from soaring deficits and withering social programs is just what the GOP has in mind with the recent tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
They call it "freedom".
329
@Look Ahead
And imagine yourself a current senior having in good faith paid a lifetime of Medicare premiums to support a prior generation of seniors and looking forward to not knowing if your investment will work for you now that you have retired.
7
@dlb The difference of course being that the current crop of seniors are responsible for their plight, having been part of the electorate that voted in Reagan and the Bushes. That they must reap the consequences of their part in ushering in the neoconservative era seems only fitting.