The Republican National Convention (Wednesday night, 8/29/12)

Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, started things off last night in grand style. It appeared as if he was auditioning to become the new mascot for the Maryland Terrapins. Placing the looking-like-turtle jokes aside, McConnell's actual speech came across in such a slow manner, that it's been rumored that a tortoise close by appeared to be moving like that of a cheetah. Time would have stood still if McConnell's speech had been placed on slow-motion instant replay.

John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee for president, spoke last night as well. It sounded like McCain was in favor of going to war with Iran, Syria and anything or anyone that/who keeps him up past 8:30 pm on a weekday (9 pm on weekends). I seriously wonder if, in his free time, all McCain does is play the board-game Risk and thinks since the world can be taken over in that all-too-realistic setting, it can happen in real life also!

The Chick-fil-A loving (and it is starting to show) Mike Huckabee also spoke last night. To his credit, he did commend Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, for her speech last night, which has been one of the best at the convention and which, oddly enough, keynote speaker Chris Christie didn't do the previous evening. Huckabee also mentioned Mitt Romney by name very early in the speech and quite frequently, which not many other speakers have done for whatever reason (I suppose I can think of a few...hundred). Toward the very end of his speech, Huckabee suddenly felt the urge to talk about religion. Supposedly he was asked one time if he could ever vote for a person who wasn't an evangelical (Romney is a Mormon) and Huckabee's response was something along the lines of, "The only one of the four who is a self-described evangelical is Obama and he believes in re-defining marriage and in abortion." In other words, Huckabee seems to feel that while Obama claims to be a Christian, his actions speak otherwise and while Romney is a Mormon, his acts are more Christian than Obama's. In the end, Huckabee probably feels that both Obama and Romney will go to hell, but that God/Jesus/Holy Spirit/Pat Robertson/The Jesus from "The Big Lebowski" will be more forgiving of him if he were to vote for Mormon Mitt Romney in November. Huckabee's speech wasn't as lengthy as a few others, due to the fact he had three buckets of Chick-fil-A chicken waiting for him and he was beginning to drool by the thought of it.

The highlight of the evening, and no, I'm not being sarcastic here, was former Secretary of State - Condoleeza Rice's speech. She took a few shots at President Obama and Democratic politics, but overall, her speech felt more genuine and personal, more heartfelt than any other speech at the convention. Honestly, if I had to rank the best speeches, according to tone, pace, energy and emotion (not according to accuracy), I'd rank Ohio Governor John Kasich's third, Ann Romney's second and Condoleeza Rice's first. It'll be quite difficult for any of tonight's speakers to top either Romney's (Ann) or Rice's speech. While I didn't agree with a decent portion of what Rice had to say last night, I do have to commend her for a great speech. Unfortunately, Dick Cheney wasn't called upon to give a warm and inviting speech as well. He was ordered to shoot friends in the face instead - yes, by the voices he hears, namely - Darth Vader's.

That brings us to Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan. He was the final speaker of the evening and how do I sum up his speech? If he were Pinocchio, his nose would have extended from Tampa, Florida to Mars.

Don't believe me? Check out some of the headlines from this morning with regard to Ryan's speech:

US News - "Paul Ryan Repeats Auto Bailout, Medicare Lies"

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2012/08/29/paul-ryan-repeats-auto-bailout-medicare-lies


The Washington Post - "Paul Ryan fails -- the truth"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/paul-ryan-fails----the-truth/2012/08/29/bbfe1eac-f254-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_blog.html?hpid=z3


Associated Press - "FACT CHECK: Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech"

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-ryan-takes-factual-shortcuts-speech-070905927.html


ThinkProgress.org - "6 Worst Lies In Paul Ryan's Speech"

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/30/772921/6-worst-lies-in-paul-ryans-speech/


The Huffington Post - "Paul Ryan Address: Convention Speech Built On Demonstrably Misleading Assertions"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/paul-ryan-address_n_1841819.html


Factcheck.org - "Ryan's VP Spin: Paul Ryan's acceptance speech at the Republican convention contained several false claims and misleading statements."

http://factcheck.org/2012/08/ryans-vp-spin/


There's even a satirical piece already out by Andy Borowitz, entitled, "Ryan Launches Campaign Theme of Lying About Everything"

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/08/ryan-launches-campaign-theme-of-lying-about-everything.html


None of those articles were the most telling of Paul Ryan's speech, however. No, the most telling bit of writing came from Fox News columnist Sally Kohn, who wrote in her article, entitled, "Paul Ryan's speech in 3 words":

"On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was  Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated."

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/

Let that soak in for a moment. A columnist at Fox News referred to Paul Ryan's words from a night ago as a "mountain of cow dung" and that it seemed as if his speech was "an apparent attempt to set the world record for greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech." That'd be like a CNN columnist referring to a speech as "the most boring thing ever!"

What were these lies? Let's count, shall we? I'll give the abbreviated version:

1) Ryan blamed President Obama for the country losing its Triple-A credit rating. However, the rating agency - Standard & Poor (S&P), said the following on August 5th of last year:

"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. …

Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee [of Congress] decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options."

In other words, it sounds like both parties in Congress are more to blame for the downgrade than the president himself. Also, since Republicans refused to raise taxes any, it's quite reasonable that we could place at least 51% of the blame on their side.

2) Ryan blamed Obama for the shutting down of a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. Here's the trouble with that claim - the plant shut down in December of 2008, when George W. Bush was still president. While Ryan is at it, he might as well blame Obama for 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Great Depression and Jesus' crucifixion. 

3) Ryan blamed the president on nothing coming out of the bipartisan debt commission (Bowles-Simpson). He claimed that ideas were pushed forth unto the president and that he decided not to do anything and just walk away from matters. Ryan actually led House Republicans to vote against this very plan. Yes, that is most certainly indeed the party of responsibility and accountability right there!

4) Ryan struck fear into elders' minds by declaring (again) that as part of Obamacare, the president will be funneling $716 million out of Medicare. 

The truth is, as Factcheck.org states, "Medicare's money isn't being taken away. The Affordable Care Act calls for slowing the growth in spending, a move that - if successful - would keep the hospital insurance trust fund solvent for longer than if the reductions didn't happen.

Ryan himself proposed keeping most of these same spending cuts in his most recent 'Path to Prosperity' budget..."

Also, as an AP fact-checker notes, "...In addition, Ryan's own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program's spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs."

Yet, even with these facts, Ryan still wants to debate about Medicare. I propose that we clamp zappers on Ryan's nipples during this debate and every time he lies, he feels a zap. The intensity of these zaps will continually escalate with each and every lie. I wonder if Mr. Ryan would still want to debate about Medicare then.

5) Ryan bashed Obama for the stimulus, saying that, "You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal." What Ryan didn't mention is that, as the Joint Committee on Taxation has calculated, approximately $230 billion of the $800 billion in the stimulus bill provided tax relief. Also, after Congress passed the stimulus, Ryan soon asked for some stimulus funds. In the end, he received such funds for two Wisconsin companies - $20.3 million for Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp. and $365,000 for the Energy Center of Wisconsin. 

Those were just five of the lies spouted by Paul Ryan last night. In reflecting on the man's speech, I think Fox News columnist Sally Kohn said it best:

"On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was  Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated."

I couldn't have said it better myself.