Paul Ryan learned from the best. As a college sophomore in 1990, Ryan interned in the office of U.S. Senator Bob Kasten and then returned to work as a legislative aide for Kasten after he graduated in 1992. Kasten at that point was already infamous for an ad he ran just weeks before his reelection in 1986 against his opponent, Ed Garvey, formerly the executive director of the National Football League Players Association. In the ad, Kasten invented a story out of whole cloth, claiming that $750,000 had "disappeared" from the NFLPA union treasury on Garvey's watch, clearly implying that Garvey had embezzled the funds. The race was tight when the ad ran but Garvey was ahead. Garvey did not have the funds to respond on television, and ad spots were mostly booked by that point anyway. After spending $200,000 to show the ad, no small sum in 1986, Kasten went on to win.
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Garvey then sued Kasten and his media consultant Roger Ailes for libel (yes, THAT Ailes, the same man who created the Fox News Channel with Rupert Murdoch, which he now chairs), pointing to an IRS audit that proved that no money was missing. The executive director of the NFLPA at the time, Gene Upshaw, held a news conference in Madison charging that Kasten's claims were an "outright lie" and said the association may take "legal recourse." Seven months later, to settle the libel suit, Kasten admitted that there was no evidence for the claims in the ad and that "the union's records on public file report for the time in question that the union funds were fully accounted for... I do not suggest that Mr. Garvey did anything illegal or that union funds were spent for other than valid union purposes." Kasten knew he would lose the suit so he admitted lying, despite then claiming victory in a press conference afterward.
The worst thing about this episode is that it puts in stark relief how the news media has an incredibly short memory, yet a long history of failing to challenge the veracity of patently absurd claims. Has anyone seen anything about Bob Kasten and his notorious 1986 ad since Ryan was named Romney's running mate? They certainly mentioned that Ryan worked for him. Perhaps the media decided that that little detail was not relevant. This is precisely what Paul Ryan expects. He doesn't need to shade the truth. He can just make stuff up and get away with it. It is far past time for the media to do their job, and it ain't stenography. Ryan's lesson? Liars win, and their consultants who advise them to lie go on to become news executives!