Two days ago, I read Paul Ryan's Wikipedia and found this tidbit interesting and unflattering, if not at all surprising for a kid at that age:
“Concerned that her son ‘was destined to become a ski bum,’ Betty Ryan reportedly nudged him to accept a congressional position as a staff economist attached to Kasten’s office.” -Wikipedia, "Paul Ryan"
Now,
his Wikipedia reads with the more clinical, "Betty Ryan reportedly urged her son to accept a congressional position as a staff economist attached to Kasten's office, which he did after graduating in 1992."
Again, this isn't too surprising. Just keep it in mind once the stories of Self-Made Firebrand Who Wanted To Change the World After Dad Died start flooding in...
From the original WI Magazine feature:
Ryan returned to classes in the fall for his senior year. Two weeks in, he got a call from Cesar Conda, Kasten’s staff director. Conda confided that the committee’s staff economist was leaving the following May. Would Ryan take the job after he graduated for one-third of the salary?
Ryan wasn’t sure...until Betty Ryan gave him a tongue-lashing. She feared her son was destined to become a ski bum. The Kasten post led Ryan to a job with two of the GOP smartest thinkers, Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett, at Empower America, then as Senator Sam Brownback’s legislative director.
Ryan cites his time with Kemp and Bennett as the formative years that shaped his political outlook. However, he was homesick most of the time. He wanted to get back home, and he wanted to hunt more.
Wait, what's that Romney was
saying yesterday? Something about how:
“His career ambition was not to go to Washington, that is not what he wanted to do,” Romney told more than 1,700 supporters at a NASCAR facility. (Thousands more waited outside.) “But he became concerned about what was happening in the country and wanted to get America back on track, and so he put aside the plans he had for his career and said, 'I’m going to go and serve.' And he’s gone there and he’s put country and policies to get America right again ahead of ambition.”
Uhh, didn't WI Magazine say he just wanted to go back home and hunt more?
Thank god for the internet. Because of it, it's harder for those of us who read and think for ourselves to be fooled by political wool. George Orwell may yet be wrong...