COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

JUST FORGET IT

What should we take away from the Republican National Convention? In Comment this week, George Packer has some ideas, especially about Paul Ryan’s star turn:

Ryan’s speech included some memorably vivid and mocking lines, none better than “College graduates should not have to live out their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

But the speech was written without benefit of shame or fact-checking. Ryan accused the President of ignoring the Simpson-Bowles commission’s advice on the debt, while failing to mention that his own opposition had already deep-sixed that advice.

He accused the President of damaging America’s AAA credit rating, but neglected to say that he himself had led the Republican strategy of deliberately putting it in peril, in order to achieve the Party’s fiscal goals.

He spent a good part of the speech vowing to protect Medicare, without ever describing his plan, which would basically turn it into a voucher system.

Ryan even accused Obama of allowing an auto plant in his home town to be shut down, when the closing was announced during the Bush Presidency.

Is Ryan the next leader of the G.O.P.? Can Mitt Romney escape his own running mate’s shadow?

Illustration by Tom Bachte Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/09/just-forget-it.html#ixzz25RJHAWDw