Last month The Weekly Standard ran this cover, which I think it probably correct. Mitt Romney's in the sidecar. (But he will get blamed when it goes over the cliff. Notice that he's weighing down Ryan on the left ...)
The Village wags are full of intrigue about Romney being mad at Kristol and aides making it clear that Romney was the guy who picked Ryan and all kinds of gossipy nonsense. Whatever.
But I was struck by this typically whiny lament by Paul Ryan in that cover story:
The longer the session continues, the more aggressive Ryan’s opponents [Rob Zerban supporters] become. Inevitably, Ryan supporters begin to shout back at them on his behalf. Ryan admonishes both groups. “People, it doesn’t make sense to start yelling at each other,” he says. And moments later: “It doesn’t work if you yell at each other. It’s just not polite.” On four separate occasions, Ryan calls for civility, but he knows better than to expect it.
“They will organize protests, talking points—sometimes they try to shout you down and get dragged out by the police. That’s their goal—to get pulled out, to disrupt,” he says later, sitting in the back seat of a large black SUV lumbering across south-central Wisconsin five days before the Democratic gubernatorial recall primary. “Wherever there’s one of us—Scott Walker, Sean Duffy, Jim Sensenbrenner, [state representative] Robin Vos—doing something, they go and find it and protest and picket us. So it’s all about agitating, polarizing—sort of Alinsky stuff—conservatives and Republicans, because of these recalls, because of the presidential.”
Poor, poor Republicans. So polite and civil and treated so disrespectfully:
Yes, those Democrats are real Alinsky agitators. Oh wait. That was Bob Inglis, a Republican, who had the nerve to say the Tea Partiers in that crowd should turn off Glenn Beck. You can see how civil they wre. In fact, they were so civil they took him out of office altogether.
How about this one:
Very civil.
I don't happen to think that's wrong. They are all citizens and they have a right to show up at public meetings and confront their representatives. What makes me see red is the insipid, hypocritical whining and crocodile tears from the likes of Paul Ryan after what his followers pulled in 2010. Seriously, they're complaining about the misbehavior of Democrats at Townhall meetings?
This is the footage of the "Alinskyesque" strategy that best represents both the Tea Party and Paul Ryan's Randroid worldview that guides them:
It still makes me sick to my stomach every time I see it.
If you've got a couple of bucks to spare, throw it here to help StopPaulRyan
