Like many of you, I'm in a giddy mood today. We'd all fantasized that Mitt Romney would be stupid, or desperate or pressured by the right enough to pick Paul Ryan ans his running mate and wonder of wonders, that golden fantasy has become a reality. Now the "zombie-eyed granny killer" and his insane Medicare-destroying budget are front and center and can be wrapped around the neck of Mitt and every single Republican House incumbant who voted for it like an anvil.
But that's been covered. I want to basically talk about who Paul Ryan really is, because he seems rather familiar to me. Sure there are a few new aspects like his drooling fanboy lust for this wretched excuse of a writer and a human being, but much of what Ryan believes in and how he acts seems rather familiar to me. And then it hit me. Ryan is essentially a much prettier version of this man.
Sorry if I scared you with that image.
But yes, Paul Ryan is basically just Phil Gramm in a new, young body. (Maybe they're both just the same person and did this little trick when nobody was looking.) But really, the similarities are striking. Both of them hate entitlements, both of them are massive hypocrites when it comes to their supposed "fiscal responsibilities" (Ryan wholeheartedly supported Bush's budget-busting measures; Gramm openly bragged about how much federal pork he brought home to Texas) and both of them are notorious assholes to those less fortunate then they are (although I don't think Ryan has had anything as blatantly offensive yet as Gramm's infamous "nation of whiners" comment in 2008). But perhaps the thing that strikes me as most similar about them is this: For guys who profess to hate the government so much, they've sure spent most of their lives making a living off of it.
Look at Ryan, for example. Here's Ezra Klein, in a rather brutal listing of Ryan's flaws (his only positive listed is that he seems like a nice guy in person), on Ryan's job history:
Now consider Ryan: He's worked in politics his entire life, beginning as an aide to Sen. Bob Kasten, then working for Sen. Sam Brownbeck and as a speechwriter to Rep. Jack Kemp.
And after that, he got elected to Congress at the tender age of 28. So Ryan has never really held a job outside government in his adult life. Which poses a big problem now for Mitt. Klein again:
And how does Romney say the problem with Barack Obama is that he's "never spent a day in the private sector" and then put Ryan a heartbeat away from the presidency?
Good point. Wonder why Mitt didn't think about that. Probably about as much thought as McCain did before picking Palin and single-handedly destroying his "experience" argument.
But Ryan's suckling at the government teat has got nothing on Gramm. In this devastating 1994 piece by David Segal in the Washington Monthly, there is an illuminating passage on how much the government meant to Gramm.
It's not surprising to hear a Republican in high dungeon about government incompetence, but having Phil Gramm lead this particular cause is, shall we say, ironic. Why? For one, Gramm is a living rebuke to the notion that goverment is merely in the way. The goverment helped bring him into this world (he was born in a millitary hospital), funded his upbringing (his father was an Army master sergent), paid for him to attend private school (with the GI insurance money Gramm's mother recieved when her husband died) and even picked up the tab for graduate school (thanks to a National Defense Fellowship). After getting his Ph.D., Gramm got a job at Texas A&M, which is state-run, was elected to the House of Representatives, and then to the Senate. In sum, Phil Gramm joined the government's rolls the first day of his life and has never left.
And never did until he left the Senate in 2002, whereupon he joined UBS AG as a Vice Chair of investment - essentially a lobbyist. Which is a job that still relies on the goverment for work.
Okay, so Ryan still has a way to go to reach Gramm's level of odiousness. But the comparison is still quite clear. Both of these rugged government-hating individualists have relied on the government for their employment all their lives and have never changed. Ryan is just Gramm all over again.
But hey, Ryan looks more like a 60s sitcom kid star and less like this,so I guess that counts for something.