<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  You have to give it to him: It&amp;#039;s been a good week for Congressman Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin. Now, if we were still sane in our politics, the zombie-eyed granny-starver would have been laughed out of his own party when his previous efforts at zombie-eyed granny-starving caused the entire nation to blanch as one, and cost the Republicans a congressional seat in upstate New York that they&amp;#039;d held approximately since DeWitt Clinton bought the farm. If we were still sane in our politics, sensible Republicans would have gone to Ryan at that point and told him, You know, dude, maybe for you not so much this budget stuff any more. If we want to hang an albatross around our necks, we&amp;#039;ll go out and shoot one ourselves. If we were still sane in our politics, the national media no longer would&amp;#039;ve gone to the zombie-eyed granny-starver as a wise man on our economic difficulties because, every time the man produces a budget, the Congressional Budget Office has to hand out Thorazine just so its analysts can get through the day. Nevertheless, and god knoweth how, Ryan remains such a sufficient force in our politics that his endorsement of the Romneybot 2.0 on Friday is considered to be a big deal, even though \u2014 and, Lord knows, we realize we are repeating ourselves here \u2014 if the Romneybot had endorsed anything like zombie-eyed granny-starving early in his career, he wouldn&amp;#039;t have received 11 votes in Massachusetts and we might never have heard of him again.... &amp;quot;At the end of the day, whether a candidate has a gaffe on Tuesday or Thursday is not going to decide the campaign,&amp;quot; Mr. Ryan said. &amp;quot;Voters are looking for someone who will show them a contrasting vision to the one that Obama has given us.&amp;quot;  (This, of course, ignores the obvious truth that Romney has given us several contrasting visions to the ones Romney had previously given us.) This, in fact, should be a gaffe in and of itself. In an election in which every pundit in the universe is going to tell him that he has to &amp;quot;tack to the center&amp;quot; to win in November, Romney once again demonstrates that he&amp;#039;s still headed off at 40 knots toward the misty isles of Wingnutesia. He&amp;#039;s married himself to the economic extremist&amp;#039;s economic extremist, a guy who is playing a pivotal role in the Great Republican Renege on last year&amp;#039;s budget deal, a guy whose &amp;quot;budget&amp;quot; the house passed this week, and who had the audacity just yesterday to unlimber the finely honed sense of military affairs that he developed in Janesville, Wisconsin and intimate that the generals are lying about their state of readiness. This, of course, as part of the overall effort by the Republicans to disarm the &amp;quot;trigger&amp;quot; that mandates cuts in defense spending, something that should have surprised precisely nobody. And, yes, everything they say about The Deficit \u2014 boogedy-boogedy! \u2014 is a lie, why do you ask? Paul Ryan is calling the generals liars and insisting that they take more money. Were we still sane in our politics, this would be seen as the arrantly nutty idea that it truly is.  (Here, by the way, is the zombie-eyed granny-starver&amp;#039;s flack, trying to shine up the flag pin on the zombie-eyed granny-starver&amp;#039;s lapel: Asked for clarification, Conor Sweeney, a spokesman for Ryan, said the congressman &amp;quot;believes the integrity of our generals and admirals is unimpeachable. They serve our country with distinction and unparalleled honor. Unfortunately, there is an inconsistency between the strategic goals and the budgetary targets that our generals and admirals have been given by the White House.&amp;quot; Translation: Suck-up, suck-up, bullshit, the president&amp;#039;s fault.) There was a time in his life, and I&amp;#039;m old enough to remember it, when Willard Romney wouldn&amp;#039;t have given 15 minutes consideration to this kind of supply-side fever-dreaming. The &amp;quot;Ryan budget&amp;quot; shoves the country&amp;#039;s wealth upwards, decimates the social safety net, relies on a new form of mathematics that seems to have been developed by Bighorn sheep, and doesn&amp;#039;t do any more toward reducing the deficit than it does toward re-aligning the teams in the American Football Conference. The Romney who produced the Massachusetts health-care reform -- Thanks, Mitt! -- wouldn&amp;#039;t recognize the Romney that is such a fan these days of zombie-eyed granny-starving. Paul Ryan&amp;#039;s career as a &amp;quot;budget guru&amp;quot; is as much a miracle of media smoke-and-mirrors as was Newt Gingrich&amp;#039;s long career as a Man Of Ideas, both of them pure products of a culture of media timidity that is unable to confront the fact that one of our two major political parties has gone barking mad. That is the party that is about to nominate Willard Romney. A man is known by the company he keeps. (Photo Illustration by DonkeyHotey via Flickr/Special to The Politics Blog) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13423/paul-ryan-endorses-romney-7723446/>