Ryan’s Hope 0
I seldom read Maureen Dowd. She does snark well, but too often behind the snark there is emptiness. I have enough emptiness of my own, thank you.
But in a column in today’s local rag (not linked because they often do not put syndicated columns on their website), I think she’s on to something of substance.
I remarked to someone the other day that the underlying unifying quality to the policies of the contemporary Republican Party seems to be a delight in cruelty.
It’s Republican family values.
- Dying and can’t afford medicine? Suffer, baby!
- Unemployed and foreclosed by on a robo-signing bankster? Suffer, baby!
- Job shipped to China for a point on the stock market? Suffer, baby!
- Raped and pregnant by your uncle? Suffer, baby!
- Living in your car starving under a bridge? Suffer, baby!
A snippet from the column:
I’d been wondering how long it would take Republicans to realize that Paul Ryan is their guy.
He’s the cutest package that cruelty ever came in. He has a winning air of sad cheerfulness. He’s affable, clean cut and really cut, with the Irish altar-boy widow’s peak and droopy, winsome blue eyes and unashamed sentimentality.
Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans?
He’s Scrooge disguised as a Pickwick, an ideologue disguised as a wonk. Not since Ronald Reagan tried to cut the budget by categorizing ketchup and relish as vegetables has the G.O.P. managed to find such an attractive vessel to mask harsh policies with a smiling face.
