Well, the Republican Convention is history and we await the Democrats later this week. The campaign season officially begins post-convention. I wonder how many have lost interest, if they ever had any, after months and months of never ending political rhetoric and factually questionable advertising?
It is easy to become apathetic and bored with the repetitive slogans that never seem to change. I wonder how the viewer ratings on the Sunday political talk shows are trending. Is there anything different being said now that we haven't heard for months? Why listen?
Is it unreasonable to wish that perhaps now that we are entering the last two months that some substance emerge? Probably. But, as I have been conditioned to feel after more than six decades as a Boston Red Sox fan; hope springs eternal.
One disappointment for me watching the Republican convention was Paul Ryan. Until now I had seen him as an intelligent articulate idea guy. Here is the man who has been instrumental and forceful in developing budgets in the House of Representitives and then displaying the strength of his convictions by persuading his fellow Republican legislators to pass the bills.
Instead he chose to attack the president with assertions that were at best wild distortions or at worst outright lies. He blamed Obama for the closure of an automobile plant that failed during the last year of the Bush administration. He mocked the president for walking away from recommendations of the Simpson/Bowles commission, neglecting to mention that as a member of that commission, Ryan voted against the recommendations. He attacked the president for raiding Medicare while neglecting to mention that his own budget took the same amount of money from the program. He blamed the president for the downgrading of American debt that happened after the Republicans threatened to default on goverment debt.
I could go on but isn't it obvious that this man is either is suffering from severe memory loss or he has a serious problem with fundamental honesty. Now I am not naive enough to be disturbed by lies and distortions in our political discourse, but give me a break. This speech at this critical time during this important election exceeds all previous standards for political mendacity.
Last week as he stood before a large national TV audience he had the opportunity to speak about his budget and how it paved the way for the future he envisioned. Did he do it? Regretably no.
As Mr. Romney asserted during his acceptance speech the next day: "It's what Americans deserved."
I wonder how Vice President Biden will do this week?
And don't forget that he massively lied about his marathon time putting himself under 3 hours which is almost an elite runner when he was really about 4 hours. Everyone who runs a marathon knows what they ran the first one in and what their best time is. They also know when they're giving themselves a better time than what they earned. Shame on Paul Ryan; he's lying to the nation and to himself.
Posted by: Carla Stoddard | September 12, 2012 at 08:17 PM