"Tell Me Lies"

I only watched a little bit of the Ryan Lie Fest last night. I had to water the lawn.

What I did see of it though was almost shocking in the breadth and depth of the lies and dissimulation coming out of that man's mouth. We expect politicians to lie as a matter of course (and for them, a matter of honor, oh yes) when they address the People, but this was in another category altogether.

I walked in on Ryan's speechifying as he was yabbering about the debt downgrade (that of course has had no discernible effect on interest rates, but that's another issue I won't get into here.) This is what he said:

It began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.

Which neglects the fact that the S&P downgrade was precipitated by the Republican recalcitrance to raise the debt ceiling -- recalcitrance that Paul Ryan, he of the Zombie Eyes -- had no small part in. The downgrade was the result of hostage-taking and brinksmanship by the very fellow who addressed us so sad-eyed last night.

The speech degenerated from there.

He lied about the debt commission -- that Ryan himself served on and made quite a show of ensuring there would be no agreement from.

He lied about Obama "doing nothing" about the national debt (though what he's doing may not be the right thing, he's not "doing nothing.")

He lied about the Obama government trying to "divide up the wealth" -- when in fact, the policies of the Obama administration and any RnR administration are all but identical in their desire to pump ever more money into the pockets of people like, well, RnR. There is no "dividing" of the wealth, there is only taking wealth (whatever's left of it) from the poor and middle class and handing it by the carload to the already richest of the rich.

He lied about Obamacare. It's far from "federal control" of "your healthcare," it's more like endless insurance company bureaucracy determining what kind of care, if any, you might receive -- provided you've paid enough in premiums for long enough, yadda yadda.

He lied about Medicare -- both what he was proposing to do with it and what Obama has proposed.

He lied about the nature of government debt.

He probably lied about his mother (though I wouldn't know about that).

And of course he lied by omission regarding his greatest philosophical and economic influence, Her Sacred Immortal Presence, Ayn Rand.

I'm glad that from time to time members of the Church whose faith he (probably falsely) professes step in to correct his many errors.

But it doesn't seem to take.

If that was the prelude, we can only imagine what lies will emanate from the Romney acceptance speech later today. After all, as I've pointed out elsewhere, Romney was brought up with the understanding that it was OK for Mormons to Lie for the Lord.

Tell me lies....

UPDATE: Perhaps Ryan's most spectacular lie last night (but I didn't see this part of his presentation) was his oft-repeated lie about the closure of the Janesville, WI, GM assembly plant. For the record: