Bullshit : Paul Ryan claims he had to choose between professional ski racing and politics

[cali]

Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 05:18 AM - Edit history (1)

<snip>

Now add Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, to the mix. The Republican House budget chairman is a former personal trainer with 6% to 8% body fat, who told CNN he faced a crossroads earlier in his life when he had to chose between a career in government or professional skiing.

<snip>

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-paul-ryan-fitness-buff-20120811,0,3997794.story

I can find no evidence that Paul Ryan was EVER a competitive skier. Wiki lists the sports he was into in hs and you don't start competitive skiing when you go off to college.

It's a nothing. A stupid little lie, but I still want to call him out on it.

[CabCurious]

1. whatever... P90X is scary!

Seriously, I'd love to see somebody concretely catch him in this lie but it's very minor.

The fact is that he's clearly a health nut and they want to paint him positively.

[cali]

2. He's been caught. Now we just have to spread it around

making him look like a lying braggart can't hurt.

[B Calm]

3. Has he ever held a private sector job?

I think he's been sucking off the government almost his entire life!!

He really thinks people get wealthy by being a professional ski racer?

[cali]

5. I think he drove the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile for a while

and actually a few people do get wealthy being a ski racer- think Bode Miller http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-athletes/bode-miller-net-worth/, but that's not the point. Ryan is lying about almost becoming a professional ski racer.

[myrna minx]

4. I've pulled out my yearbooks and can corroborate that he was in ski club at Craig Sr HS.

I have no idea if he was skilled enough to be pro, but he was in ski club.

[cali]

6. You have to race at an elite level during hs and almost all ski racers go and went at that time

to elite ski racing academies like The Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, or live someplace like Vail or Killington and are on the slopes every skiable day during the season.

I'm the mother of a now 25 year old who started racing at age 7 and though a fantastic skier, we knew by the time he was 13 or so that he wasn't going to make the grade.

Paul Ryan does not have that background.

[myrna minx]

7. Fair enough, I just wanted to point out that he was indeed in the ski club, in case it wasn't on

his wiki page. I didn't hang out with him, but if he was an elite skier of any kind, I had no knowledge of it.

[cali]

8. No, I'm glad you posted

but being in a hs ski club in Wisconsin just isn't the background of a professional ski racer. It's one of those sports (and this was true in the 1980s) where you have to start rigorous training at a young age.


He's lying when he said had to choose between being a professional ski racer and working in government.

[LiberalFighter]

21. Hey Myrna... I don't have any recollection of anyone having that type of expertise

being reported in the Gazette. I bet the Ryan's had a close connection with the Bliss family and there would had been at least one article published.

I'm not sure the Cascade or Alpine would had provided the right training either. More along recreational I would think.

[myrna minx]

25. It's funny you mentioned Cascade and Alpine - I giggled at the thought of a

world class skier training at Cascade. That's a mighty fine hill to train on.
I would think the Gazette would be a great resource to find out about his skiing aspirations - The Bliss' and Ryans, I'm sure go wayyy back.

Our basketball team went to state which was a big deal to the school at the time, so I'm pretty sure I would have known if we had a future pro-skier in our midst, especially since the Calgary Olympics were in 1988, but again, I would be the last to know.

[snooper2]

22. I've got my own little poker club, I could have gone pro

but enjoy my cube so much I couldn't leave it for anything

[SoCalDem]

46. High school clubs are pretty easy to join, and everyone knows that

some kids join everything so their yearbook makes them look super-involved..

I had a friend who joined the photography club, and most sophisticated camera she ever used was a Polaroid Swinger

[LiberalFighter]

20. I was figuring he was in the ski club.

IMO ski club not likely to be the place one sticks around if they are working to turn professional. Considering his other activities he wouldn't have enough time to spend the time required.

If he had to make a choice between politics and turning professional in skiing I'm wondering at what point in his life this was a decision he had to make? It doesn't make sense. There wasn't time while he was in high school and if he went to college graduating four years later he then went to work in DC.

It doesn't look like any of his siblings attended when I was there. But there are plenty of Ryan's so possibly related.

But maybe we can convince him to try and go professional after he is defeated in both of his elections.

I like Salon's description of the family. It probably best describes them.

Paul Ryan was born into a well-to-do Janesville, Wisc. family, part of the so-called “Irish mafia” that’s run the city’s construction industry since the 19th century.

I didn't know Joan Walsh was from Wisconsin.

[myrna minx]

27. I didn't know Joan was from 'Sconi either. Back in HS, PD's cousin Adam was the one

everyone thought would run for office. Adam was the "thinker" and PD was the prom king/jock. That's why we were surprised that it was PD running for office.

[notadmblnd]

28. Does your yearbook point out that he was voted the biggest brown- noser in HS?

I read an article about him in the Newyorker magazine and it said there that he was.

[myrna minx]

29. Yep - believe me, that was a real hit on my FB feed yesterday.

If the vote survey was held again today, he'd still win.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1113052

[Nativo13]

41. Paul Ryan Was Voted Biggest Brown-Noser by His Senior Year Classmates

The Daily Beast reports that Paul Ryan was voted biggest brown-noser by his senior year classmates.
Can you verify or deny ?

[myrna minx]

42. I can verify - I have the yearbook in my lap.

It's on page 164 of the 1988 "Phoenix" yearbook. The photo that was posted on Facebook by Politics Nation is accurate.

[cali]

9. SKIING; Groomed for Success at Ski Academies

By BILL PENNINGTON
Published: March 16, 2003

By the time they were 13, young athletes by the hundreds, having shown a special talent in their best sport, were dispatched to a sport-specific academy in the distant mountains.

There, living away from their parents, they followed an intense regimen, drilled in their schoolwork but training at least six days a week, sometimes twice a day. They spent their formative high school years this way, lavished with the best coaching and facilities the nation could offer while traveling to international junior competitions and exotic summer training camps.

By the time they were 18, the best of them, the top 1 percent, were assigned to the national team. Years later, they won Olympic glory.

East Germany, right?

Not even close. But it does describe the adolescent years of nearly every top-level athlete on the current United States ski and snowboarding teams -- a group that has suddenly found itself among the best in the world in sports formerly dominated by Europeans.
<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/sports/skiing-groomed-for-success-at-ski-academies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[Scuba]

10. His career in professional athletics was cut short when it was discovered he suffered from....

... a severe lack of talent.

[cali]

11. I don't know why this irritates me so much

I guess because it's just transparent, petty and arrogant.

[LiberalFighter]

23. Remember your high school years?

Any particular cliches that irritated the hell out of you? Or finally realized their true nature?

[cali]

24. do you mean cliques? And lots of cliches still irritate the hell out of me.

[LiberalFighter]

31. Yes the cliques.

All those special groups that thought they were better than everyone else.

[cali]

32. I went to a hippie private school

there were people who hung out with each other but there weren't really any cliques- except the older kids tended to hang out with their peers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. I think he wanted to be a ski bum

CROWLEY: Yes. He's actually young to be a Led Zeppelin fan but that's who he likes. He originally wanted to be a doctor. There's doctors in his family.

Then he got into chemistry and didn't like it. Then he wanted professional skiers and freestyle and his mother got panicked he said. And so, he got a job in economics. I said, skiing or economics. Do you ever regret that? He went, yes, sometimes.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1208/11/bn.03.html

Yeah, lots of people who've tried skiing see people who spend an entire season in ski resorts and think "sweet! Maybe I could land a job here too!". And they reckon they're good enough to be an instructor, and think there's no way they're as big a douche as the guy who taught them a few years ago, so surely they'd get hired, so they "want to be a professional skier". And then some adult, like their mother, tells them to get real. But, in their memories, they had a glittering 'pro' career in front of them, until they decided to sacrifice it for the good of their country, and went into economic haruspicy instead.

[cali]

14. no one calls ski instructors professional skiers

At least in all my years around skiing and racing I've never heard anyone who wasn't on a race or competitive circuit, referred to as a professional skier.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Do you think Candy Crowley uses the lingo accurately?

What we have from the broadcast part of her talking to Ryan was her saying "We noted that you're a bow hunter, a skier and a fisherman", and him not talking about skiing. Then she said "he wanted professional skiers and freestyle", which is grammatically confused, and not very specific. And then the LA Times turned that into "he faced a crossroads earlier in his life when he had to chose between a career in government or professional skiing".

It's one rephrasing after another, and I'm not sure I can even blame him for it, until we hear how he's put it himself at some time. At the moment, it sounds more like bad media brown-nosing (something we do know he was good at).

On edit: The actual interview, from last year, is in #19.

[madinmaryland]

35. I can't even imagine Candy Crowley skiing, let alone understanding the lingo.

[librechik]

49. i can't even imagine Candy Crowley WATCHING skiing n/t

[highplainsdem]

13. Ryan's been trying to mislead voters since his first campaign for Congress.

I posted a topic yesterday that included some quotes from the Democrat who ran against him in 1998.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021112797

His attempts to mislead voters then included shooting ads of himself wearing a hard hat and looking at building plans at a construction site -- when his work background was as a Washington staffer -- and appearing at campaign events with his sister and her baby standing next to him, in an apparent attempt to convince voters he was a married family man (this was two years before he got married). That attempt worked with at least some voters who told Ryan's opponent that they'd met "Paul and his wife and baby." And the ads showing him wearing a hard hat might have been the start -- the very deliberate start -- of the myth we're still hearing from some in the media about Ryan having a "blue collar background" when in fact his father and grandfather were lawyers, and his great-grandfather started a construction company in the late 19th century.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021112566

[Motown_Johnny]

15. The delusions of a ski bum. Once you no longer ski you are just a bum.

[Buns_of_Fire]

16. Big deal. *I* had to choose between a career in the NBA and a career in IT.

Thankfully, being 5'7", completely uncoordinated, and knowing nothing about basketball made my choice a lot easier.

[bullwinkle428]

18. Exactly. NPR's little profile piece on him yesterday more or less stated that he was a "ski bum"

at the very most, and his mother was worried he was wasting his life, when he just magically happened to receive this job offer to work on economic policy for then-Sen. Robert Kasten from WI.

Like every recent college graduate just happens to fall ass-backwards into a great job opportunity like that...

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. To give him his due, his own description was 'ski bum'

Interview here:

Starting about 1:00:

Crowley: We also read that your mom gave you a helping hand in getting into politics, because she was afraid you'd become a ski bum. ...

Ryan: ... I fell in love with economics, and so I wanted to go into the field of economics, and I am a big skier, I was really in to skiing at that time, I was really into freestyle skiing, mogul skiing, and my mom was worried that if, after college, I went to go skiing, that 2 years would turn into 5, 10, whatever, years, and so I was offered a job as an economics policy researcher, for my home state senator Bob Kasten, at the time. She really gave me a big nudge to take that job. She was worried I'd become a ski bum. And that's when I got involved into economics and politics.

[madinmaryland]

36. Interesting how he is described as a "self-made man", when in actuality it was his Mom that

got him his job.

[notadmblnd]

26. Paul Ryan- A legend in his own mind.

[formercia]

30. All poor kids should have his problems

He "fell in love with economics."

More like: He realized, while working as an intern, that politicians can make a hell of a lot of money if they are willing to compromise what few values they have and sell their access to the highest bidder.

[hedgehog]

33. i thought he fell in love with Ayn Rand.......

[Ikonoklast]

34. Well, I can commiserate. I was going to be a pitcher in professional baseball.

The decision was hard to make, actually, until I remembered that I had no fastball, my curve was non-existent, I had little in the way of a change-up, and almost every hitter I ever faced had no problem pasting every pitch thrown their way into the stratosphere.

Other than that, I coulda been a contendah!

[kestrel91316]

37. I started competitive skiing when I was in college.

I don't get why that's not possible, lol. I eventually placed highly in my region and got invited to a national competition back east, but didn't have the money to fly there, and my undergraduate degree and pre-vet courses had to take precedence.

I hate Ryan for lots of reasons, but he's not necessarily lying about this, at least for the reason YOU cite, which is absurd.

[Whisp]

38. The only skiing he is involved with is RobUBlindski

[Johonny]

39. I remember the ESPN interview when Rush said he could of been an NFL player...

lolz

[Blue Owl]

40. Either way, he's going DOWNHILL...

n/t

[Kendgeoful]

43. I call bull shit on your bull shit

Fact is ANY ski racer worth his salt DOES NOT ski in high school. They would race in FIS or regional USSA races-I know, my son DOES!! He is a senior in high school and ranked top 10 in country in downhill and super g and top 20 in slalom and GS and he NEVER participated in even one high school race. He could win a high school race skiing backwards! So I call bull shit on your bull shit- you don't know what you are talking about

[DURHAM D]

44. I think you have missed the point.

Why are you so angry?

[hlthe2b]

45. re:

You really need to tone it down with the rudeness. That said, I'm sure you are correct for those who are talented enough to rank Nationally.

[Ruby the Liberal]

48. Give decaf a try.

Seriously.

[BeyondGeography]

51. Nice first post

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

47. Big deal. I had to choose between the Marine Crotch and being a dishwasher.

For the next 4 years I wished I had stuck to the dishes.

[progressivebydesign]

50. a guy that age, that is hung up on his body fat... is usually a narcissist. He's Romney Jr.

I have yet to meet a guy that wasn't a pro athlete, that boasted about his body fat, that was not completely into himself. Who effing cares that he has an athlete's body fat? He's still an asshole, and probably quite vain from the videos I've seen of him interacting with others.