Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Wingnuts attack Paul Ryan: Not wingnutty enough!

Paul Ryan Watch has observed that Paul Ryan's fiscal conservative schtick is fairly humorous, given his votes for TARP, the deficit-financed Medicare drug benefit, and the auto bailout.

Wingnuts have paid attention to Paul Ryan's record and found it wanting in ideological purity:

Says Matt Lewis at Daily Call:

Though he talks like Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, some of Ryan’s most high-profile votes seem closer to Keynes than to Adam Smith. For example, in the span of about a year, Ryan committed fiscal conservative apostasy on three high-profile votes: The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP (whereby the government purchased assets and equity from financial institutions), the auto-bailout (which essentially implied he agrees car companies – especially the ones with an auto plant in his district—are too big to fail), and for a confiscatory tax on CEO bonuses (which essentially says the government has the right to take away private property—if it doesn’t like you).

While Ryan’s overall voting record is very conservative, the problem with casting these high-profile votes is that they demonstrate he is willing to fundamentally reject conservatism when the heat is on. ...


Though Ryan has downplayed his bad votes, what is more interesting is that few conservatives seem to hold them against him. His many defenders (and trust me, I’ve encountered them) cavalierly dismiss his voting record as mere pragmatism, or an easily forgiven mistake, like, ‘Oops, I voted for $700 billion! My bad…’

Still others, when pressed, his apologists often admit they support him because of his style and intellect, despite his actual voting record. The irony, of course, is that conservatives were furious when Clinton and Obama apologists dismissed their flaws by saying, “but he’s so smart,” or “he’s cool…”


Lewis notes that just last year Michelle Malkin took a shot at Ryan.

Then again, these are probably good ideological opponents for Ryan to have.

Should Paul Ryan expect a tea party challenger?

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