Paul Ryan, VP Nominee, Lies About Marathon Time

Turns out that the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, has run a marathon (Grandma's in 1990), and at first glance I must applaud the man for that even if I could not disagree more with his proposed policies.

But--and this is a big but--it also turns out that he lied about it.  Via Gawker.com, here, we learn that his best marathon time was actually a 4:01 and not the "two hour fifty something" that he claims.

Never mind any factual inaccuracies in his political speeches: a runner's time is sacred. Straight-up lying about Obama "raiding" Medicare and closing GM plants is one thing. Bragging about a fictional athletic accomplishment is quite another.

"Sacred" indeed is true.  You just don't lie about your times and your accomplishments--it's just NOT DONE.  Sure, in the big scheme of things a difference of an hour in a marathon nearly a quarter of a century ago doesn't amount to a pinch of crap in terms of worldly impacts.  But it says reams about the kind of person you are.

Reminds me of a Vince Lombardi quote that has stuck with me over the years:

"If you cheat on the practice field, you'll cheat in the game," he said, "and if you cheat in the game, you'll cheat the rest of your life."
 

Paul Ryan, cheater.  A person who would lie about a race time does not have the character to be Vice President.  Case closed.

 

Paul Ryan, Whippersnapper

Ultrarunning on hold while we speak about politics, prompted by the gathering in Tampa.  Here's a piece by Matt Taibbi (via Vagabond Scholar) about the Very Serious Person and Republican vice-presidential nominee, Paul Ryan:

Every few years or so, the Republicans trot out one of these little whippersnappers, who offer proposals to hack away at the federal budget. Each successive whippersnapper inevitably tries, rhetorically, to out-mean the previous one, and their proposals are inevitably couched as the boldest and most ambitious deficit-reduction plans ever seen. Each time, we are told that these plans mark the end of the budgetary reign of terror long ago imposed by the entitlement system begun by FDR and furthered by LBJ.

Never mind that each time the Republicans actually come into power, federal deficit spending explodes and these whippersnappers somehow never get around to touching Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. The key is that for the many years before that moment of truth, before these buffoons actually get a chance to put their money where their lipless little mouths are, they will stomp their feet and scream about how entitlements are bringing us to the edge of apocalypse.

The reason for this is always the same: the Republicans, quite smartly, recognize that there is great political hay to be made in the appearance of deficit reduction, and that white middle class voters will respond with overwhelming enthusiasm to any call for reductions in the “welfare state,” a term which said voters will instantly associate with black welfare moms and Mexicans sneaking over the border to visit American emergency rooms.

The problem, of course, is that to actually make significant cuts in what is left of the “welfare state,” one has to cut Medicare and Medicaid, programs overwhelmingly patronized by white people, and particularly white seniors. So when the time comes to actually pull the trigger on the proposed reductions, the whippersnappers are quietly removed from the stage and life goes on as usual, i.e. with massive deficit spending on defense, upper-class tax cuts, bailouts, corporate subsidies, and big handouts to Pharma and the insurance industries.

This is a political game that gets played out in the media over and over again, and everyone in Washington knows how it works. Which is why it’s nauseating (but not surprising) to see so many commentators falling over themselves with praise for Ryan’s “bold” budget proposal, which is supposedly a ballsy piece of politics because it proposes backdoor cuts in Medicare and Medicaid by redounding their appropriations to the states and to block grants. Ryan is being praised for thusly taking on seniors, a traditionally untouchable political demographic...