Flashback, April 2011: Paul Ryan is a whiner too (with photos)

[ProSense]

Photo: Paul Ryan before and after the President's speech

Before:



U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis), author of the Republican House budget
proposal, arrives to listen to a speech delivered by President Barack Obama on U.S. fiscal and budgetary
deficit policy at the George Washington University in Washington, April 13, 2011. Obama proposed cutting
ballooning U.S. budget deficits by $4 trillion over 12 years and called for talks with Democratic and Republican
lawmakers to address the worsening fiscal woes.

After:



House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. , declares that he was "disappointed" in President Obama's
speech on a federal spending plan, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 13, 2011.

Source: daylife.com

Dear outraged Republicans: Politics is supposed to be a clash of visions

By Greg Sargent

It appears that the umbrage and outrage among some Republicans took at Obama’s speech this week — which aggressively defended the Democratic vision and caustically criticized the GOP worldview — shows no signs of abating. The latest: GOP Reps. Paul Ryan, Dave Camp and Jeb Hensarling are now complaining to the Post that Obama’s speech was a sneak attack:

The three Republican congressmen saw it as a rare ray of sunshine in Washington’s stormy budget battle: an invitation from the White House to hear President Obama lay out his ideas for taming the national debt.

They expected a peace offering, a gesture of goodwill aimed at smoothing a path toward compromise. But soon after taking their seats at George Washington University on Wednesday, they found themselves under fire for plotting “a fundamentally different America” from the one most Americans know and love.

“What came to my mind was: Why did he invite us?” Rep. Dave Camp said in an interview Thursday. “It’s just a wasted opportunity.”...

Afterward, Ryan was furious. The speech “was extremely political, very partisan,” he fumed.

This is deeply strange. For days, administration officials had been saying publicly that Obama was going to lay out a “contrast” of visions between Ryan’s and his own. What’s more, politics is supposed to be a clash of visions.

During the 2010 elections, Mitch McConnell — quite rightly, in my view — dismissed all the complaints that our politics had grown uncivil by saying: “I don’t think we have a collegiality problem. What we are in the middle of is a great debate about the future of the country.” McConnell has openly stated that his leading goal is to ensure that Obama is a one-term president. When he was challenged on that, he quite properly pointed out that what’s at stake is a battle of visions

Throughout the first two years of Obama’s presidency, leading Republicans have regularly claimed that Obama is taking America towards socialism. Yet when a Democratic president stands up and aggressively defends his vision and worldview, and contrasts it sharply with that of his foes, something’s wrong. That’s not supposed to happen.

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/dear-outraged-republicans-politics-is-supposed-to-be-a-clash-of-visions/2011/03/03/AFZ6nBkD_blog.html

Romney begs for mercy: Please stop the Bain and tax attacks! It hurts!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021105721

Romney campaign whining about the polls
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021104504

[yardwork]

1. That photo is devastating, and here's another thing - Ryan will not play in the south.

I've lived in the south for a long time, and I've seen the kind of politician that old-time southerners support, and Paul Ryan is definitely Not It. He looks like the stereotype of the clueless, arrogant northerner telling other people what to do. No charm, no charisma, no "I'm one of you guys."

[ProSense]

3. He's Romney's Mini Me. n/t

[yardwork]

4. Ryan is worse than Romney.

In the eyes of an independent old-timey southerner, at least Romney sort of looks the part. The fact that he was governor of Massachusetts is a huge problem, of course. You have to kind of squint and look sideways to see Romney as an ordinary guy, but at least he's got that big white family.

Paul Ryan looks repellent to the average southerner. I'm serious. It's just not going to work.

And neither one of them are "proper" Christians. One is a Mormon and the other is a Catholic. To the independent southern guy who is already highly skeptical of Washington this is going to look like a joke. No, he's not going to vote for the black guy who's some kind of "muslin" either. He's going to stay home. He will sit this one out.

[ProSense]

5. Maybe in

"Ryan is worse than Romney."

...political terms, but Romney is a despicable soulless predator. Still, they're likely the same.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Ryan is the "do what I say, I know what I'm talking about" type ...

who thinks he was just born to lead, and is frustrated when others fail to acknowledge that. Of course it tends to come across as "I'm smarter than you, so I get to decide" which doesn't play any better.

But if Repugs vote, they'll vote for him. I see a low R turnout as more likely than a swing toward Obama.

[yardwork]

7. I agree. The racist Repugs won't vote for Obama, but they won't vote for this ticket either.

What you say about Ryan - that he's the "do what I say, I know what I'm talking about" type - is EXACTLY what so many southerners hate. They have a deep suspicion of Yankees telling them what to do.

[ProSense]

8. Republicans have no

problem defending nonsense, which is what the Ryan budget amounts to.

[Dkc05]

2. whats wrong with socialism?

Nothing that I see is wrong with socialism is most americans are poor. The wealthy republicans have stolen all of our jobs and plunder this country.