Last night, Paul Ryan was supposed to jolt the system of the Republican Party full of youthful energy. And on the surface, I suppose, that’s what he did. After all, he talked about listening to AC/DC and Zeppelin, and who better to exemplify the hep now-ness of the Republican Party than a band that was formed in 1973 and a band that has been around in various incarnations for almost fifty years? It’s impossible to ignore the fact that Ryan’s public speaking skills are nowhere near that of Sarah Palin’s. He is not a master of rhetoric. He sounds like the kid in the oatmeal commercials, all wholesome aw-shucks voice and exaggerated I-told-you-so finger-wagging.

It’s a good thing his voice is naturally wholesome, because he lies all the time. When he’s not lying, he’s “merely” obfuscating the truth. He accuses Obama of blaming everything on George W. Bush (without mentioning George W. Bush’s name, because that would remind people of the ineffectual nature of Bush’s policies and the fact that Ryan voted in lockstep with Bush for eight solid years) and then he accuses Obama of allowing a GM plant to go out of business when in fact that plant closed during Bush’s time in office. He mocked the stimulus when he in fact requested stimulus money for his home district and then denied requesting stimulus money for his home district. There are many more lies; they’ve been well-documented in the time since his speech. (He did do the traditional vice presidential job of attacking the opposition mercilessly. He might have been too good at it, in fact: There was a point during Ryan’s speech when he was talking about the national debt under President Obama when a man in the hall—somewhere near the top back, shouted something that sounded like “Kill him!” I don’t know if that’s what he said; maybe he was saying “bill him?” I didn’t hear any reaction to the cry, but I swear that’s what I heard.)

Ryan’s speech wasn’t even the highlight of the evening.

Find out more after the jump…

The real star was Condoleezza Rice, who gave a biographical speech in a weird, Shatnerian cadence that almost definitely foreshadowed some major political race in her very near future. Rice seemed to be suggesting a kinder, gentler Republican Party on domestic issues—her comments on schools had a tinge of vouchers and anti-union sentiment, but she made sure to suggest that ZIP codes shouldn’t determine how you do in life, which is a borderline treasonous statement to make in those quarters, and she sounded positively weak on immigration when compared to everyone else in the room. But the room still ate it up. Nobody noticed that she barely mentioned the fact that she served under President Bush, and that her only experience is with foreign policy. The audience applauded, they stood up and cheered, they generally lost their shit. After the crowds left the hall, nobody was talking about Ryan and everyone was talking about Rice. “She didn’t even use a teleprompter,” a man next to me said, with wonder in his voice. (She had the whole speech written out in front of her on paper, but I guess that doesn’t count somehow?)

And Susana Martinez, too, offered up a different face to the Republican Party than most are used to seeing. Sure, she threw in some red meat—her comment that she owned a Smith & Wesson had the Texas delegation whipping their hats around in ecstasy—but she made the Republican Party actually sound kind of approachable. In fact, every noteworthy speech delivered at the convention thus far has been given by a minority woman. The rest of the show was dismal. Tim Pawlenty and Rob Portman both demonstrated why they were passed over for vice presidential picks with their awkward speeches. Mike Huckabee delivered a spiritless oratory that either belied his lack of enthusiasm for politics in general, or for Mitt Romney in particular.

The most painful moment was musical. It was when former Damn Yankees frontman Jack Blades performed an original, hair-metal-lite song. He pranced all over the stage like the washed-up rock “star” he is, trying to coax the crowd into a sexual frenzy and only serving to annoy them with his generic, screeching rock. It was the bookend to Ryan’s later AC/DC-to-Zeppelin remark, and a symbol for the whole show: An older man trying to act like he still has what appealed to people in the first place, trying to pretend that somehow, he’s still got it, when really everyone just wants him to get off the stage so they can get on with their lives.

23 replies on “RNC Diary Day 2: The Wholesome Kid with the Lying Mouth”

  2. “Obama had promised while visiting the plant in 2008 that it would stay open for 100 years.”

    That is part of the article Paul Constant provided. So was Obama lying to get elected? Or was this just one more broken promise?

    And still no mention of Mia Love? How her Wiki page was vandalized with hate speech? Of course not. That isn’t newsworthy at all.

    This article is obviously biased and really without facts to back up the claims that Ryan lied anywhere.

  4. Hey Paul: “Domestically, TNR as of 2011 supports a largely modern liberal stance on fiscal and social issues.”

    You think I’m going to believe a biased media outlet? Try again. Try to include a link for a media outlet that is fair to both sides. I don’t need to be told by liberal pimps how to think.

  10. Do me a quick favor, Paul, and click on Sally Kohn’s name at the top of the article and see where it gets you. All I saw were entries that were pro-Obama with nearly one exception. I certainly won’t read them all as the headlines are clear in their intention. She is an admitted Democrat and obviously very biased in her views. I’d prefer you include a link to at least one independent, unbiased source of information instead of providing these types of articles.

    I’m an Independent voter. I also have a very good bullshit meter. If the Pubs are being lying bastards, I will call them on it. Nothing that you have provided to me indicates in a tangible form that Ryan lied about anything. Instead, you offered spin-heavy articles that only serve to misrepresent a party and their leaders who aspire to change our economy and assist us all in rolling back these overbearing restrictions that have led to a terrible economy. Like The Affordable Care Act. Dodd/Frank. We don’t need more regulations to guide us. We don’t need dictators so hungry for power that our country falls into financial insolvency and potential ruin for the next generation. We need to allow dishonest people, both in the public and private sector, to fail and move on. Employing distortions (on either side) won’t win this election. Providing biased media articles won’t lead to unity. What will work is leadership and compromise. We need to create a climate of personal responsibility, not a socialized theme that has never worked in the history of mankind.

    Mitt Romney is a good man who has earned his success in the private sector. He knows all about money. Obama is a career politician only interested in liberal causes, which have pretty much failed us all. Want more votes? Flip-flop on the definition of marriage. Circumvent Congress and pass your own Dream Act. Don’t condemn Biden for saying Romney and Ryan are going to “put y’all back in chains”. Divide and conquer. And there is more to come.

    If I thought for one minute that Pubs hated women, were racist and hate gay people on their way to fattening their own wallets for the elite, then I would never get behind them. I see past the distortions and the attempt to divide people among classes. I see past the innuendo. What I have left to help make the most informed decision I can is unbiased reality. That is why I will vote for Romney.

  12. Okay, okay, I’ll bite. It may be true that the factory in WI is essentially “asleep,” so no lie there right? And, you know, “it was probably untrue for ryan to say Obama ‘did nothing but dodge and demagogue this issue…'” Not sure how you declare unbiased, but even conservative fox reporters are maybe, just slightly, partially admitting that there may have been some untruths last night. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30…

  14. Markj: I believe both Obama AND Pubs were responsible for the downgrade. However, it happened under the leadership of Obama. What a great leader does is work with the other side and compromise on tough issues. People are surely free to condemn Pubs for stubbornly refusing to budge and the same could be said for the President. Does that make Ryan a liar? Hardly. S&P has their opinion on it and that’s fine. That doesn’t mean it is entirely factually sound nor does it absolve Obama completely from any real responsibility on the matter.

    This is good article from USA Today. I think it well reflects the state of affairs around the time of the downgrade. As far as the continued gridlock goes, hopefully it will all end after November.

  19. glitch: This came directly from the Fox News article you provided:

    “However, nothing Ryan said in his speech about the plant was factually untrue.”

  20. D&W: All liberal-biased news outlets and hardly a good source of information. Pardon me if I don’t click on your links but that is simply because you have consistently attacked me here because you disagree with me on issues we all face. I don’t know you personally but the manner in which you have conducted yourself toward me has been hostile and dishonest, to say the least. I don’t believe you are without hope, but you really need to come at me respectfully or I will never take you seriously and likely ignore from here on out. Try going beyond pasting links to people that have an actual opinion on the matter and form your own using different sources of information. Then post it here for everyone to see. If you can’t manage that then I won’t engage you anymore.

  23. SJR, since you say ‘I see past the distortions and the attempt to divide people among classes. I see past the innuendo. What I have left to help make the most informed decision I can is unbiased reality.’ and since you regard most major city newspapers and national TV networks as biased, I’m very curious about what you regard as truly unbiased since you have clearly stated many times over that you are an independent voter. Could you please name 10 media sources that you consider free of all of the lies/bias/etc.? Just the names/links–really don’t need any justification or explanation here. Just very curious about the tools you use to see ‘unbiased reality’ in the American political landscape.

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