Lawrence O'Donnell did a great job of showing how ridiculous some of the talking heads on the right like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and David Gergen are for their praise of Paul Ryan as someone who should throw his hat into the 2012 GOP primary race. Quite frankly, O'Donnell missed a whole lot of them that I've had the sorry occasion to watch, including way too many on his own network that constantly refer to Ryan as "serious" or "adult" when his budget plan is nothing but more tax breaks for the rich and asking the least among us to pick up the tab.
I was happy that he called out one of my least favorite pundits out there, David Gergen, that if someone wanted to take the time to track it, is one of the worst offenders with the let's get serious and have an adult conversation b.s. when it comes to justifying the have-mores heaven forbid being asked to pay their fair share in taxes and with insisting that we destroy our social safety nets like Social Security as well.
I think even Paul Ryan knows that trying to run for president might not be such a good idea right now given that he is likely to be reading the same polls O'Donnell cites during this segment. What would make me really happy is to see him lose his House seat over his extremism now that he's been happy to shove himself into the national spotlight.
O'DONNELL: Time for tonight's Rewrite. In unveiling his plan to kill Medicare as we know it, Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan has been portrayed by some, as a strong, courageous Republican leader, a rising star in the party.
ROVE: Ryan is a meticulous, thoughtful, articulate, deeply informed and passionate advocate.
CHENEY: I... um... worship the ground that Paul Ryan walks on. I think he's an enormously talented individual and he's tried to do the right thing.
GERGEN: When the president says there are too many children up there, I think, ah... that for many in the American public, that Paul Ryan looks like the adult who actually had the courage to put forward a plan.
O'DONNELL: In the Weekly Standard just last month, editor Bill Kristol called the idea of Ryan running for president, “the Democrat's worst nightmare.”
Really? The Democrat's worst nightmare? If you're wondering what the polls say about that, a new survey from Bloomberg News found that just 34% of Americans think they'd be better off under the Paul Ryan plan, while 57% said that things would be worse. And the all important independent voters, 58% think that the Ryan plan is a bad idea.
As for Ryan himself the survey found that he is the third most disliked Republican in America. The only two Republicans more disliked than Paul Ryan? Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, both of whom are far better known than Paul Ryan.
At Paul Ryan's much, much lower level of notoriety, it is much, much harder to get people to dislike you, because they have to know you first. But the Ryan plan has managed to turn that trick for Paul Ryan.
Palin and Gingrich aside, it's hard to imagine a Republican who can tie a necktie, who would be beaten more badly by President Obama in a presidential campaign, than Paul Ryan.
So political reality demands that Bill Kristol's headline be rewritten to “Paul Ryan: The Republican's Worst Nightmare.”
If you would like to donate to try to make sure Ryan is not reelected in the House, you can do so at ActBlue's page here, Stop Paul Ryan.
