Friday October 12, 2012

FOLKS, FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCT ON THIS ONE. Paul Ryan's a punk, and Joe Biden's treating him like one.

UPDATE. Really, no matter how the Villagers react to this, it is a great pleasure to watch someone just laugh at this bullshit -- and heckle it!

I mean, when you have reactions like this...

... you know you're making the clowns sad.

UPDATE 2. I mean, Ryan's transparently full of shit. Here he is talking about "fighting seasons" and "the pass filling with snow." I guess he saw Iron Eagle once. And when he gets peppy it's just repulsive. He swings his head around like a grounded teenager who can't be-leeeeve what a douche Dad is being.

UPDATE 3. Aaaagh, Ryan is turning his puppy-dog eyes and insurance-salesman schtick directly toward the camera now. If people ain't barfing this isn't the country I thought it was.

UPDATE 4. I was stupid enough to watch this debate but not stupid enough to watch the rabid apes who do TV commentary afterwards. However, the Twitter machine tells me the GOP/Villager line is that Biden was rude to Ryan. Rude is more than Ryan deserves. He's lucky to walk out of there without a pierced ear.

I could say something substantial about the whole thing but I've already written about Ryan's granny-starving and the affection it engenders among the brethren. It's been a long hard day, I deserve a break, and TV wrestling's not what it used to be.

UPDATE 5. In comments, Batocchio:

Civility has its place, but honesty over civility, accuracy over politeness. Alternatively, if you define "civility" in part as showing respect for the truth, a liar has broken the implicit contract of the debate/discussion, and as a moral matter should be called out. (Not that that happens much in the Village, but boy, it's awesome when it does.)

Every politician -- well, every successful one -- fudges the truth a bit, but Ryan is such a three-shift lie factory that to mock and deride him is not only a pleasure but also a duty. I may be too forgiving of Joe Biden's type of malarkey, not only because I wear a Team Blue jacket, but also because it's old-fashioned (In fact I don't think I've heard the word "malarkey" spoken aloud since I was a boy), and judge Ryan more harshly (you can't judge him too harshly) because his lies are delivered with the cold efficiency of slaughterhouse machinery. But that's okay; the victory of the human is welcome however it comes; I prefer Spencer Tracy's Frank Skeffington to his Nixon manqué opponent Kevin McCluskey in The Last Hurrah, too.