Maureen Dowd has disappointed before, but not today.
Her latest NYT column, that will also appear in hundreds of newspapers around the country, piles on about Romney's desperate pick of a far-right, Randian ideologue for his VP candidate.
In three words, "it spells doom."
Why, below.
Dowd goes to town on Al Hunt's Villager odd analysis that Paul Ryan could be the "Dick Cheney of economic and tax policy."
Where Ryan is like Cheney is in tone: at first blush, the Wisconsin congressman emanates a thoughtful, reassuring reasonableness, talking to reporters and sometimes Democratic lawmakers. Cheney’s deep voice, like the headmaster of a boys’ prep school, seemed moderate and measured, too, at first.
But it is deceptive. Both men are way, way out there.
For example, Ryan is as extreme as Cheney on abortion:
Just as Cheney was always willing to cough up money to guerrillas in Nicaragua and Angola but not to poor women whose lives were endangered by their pregnancies, so Ryan helped pay for W.’s endless wars while pushing endless anti-abortion bills, like one undercutting an exemption from the ban on using federal money for abortions in cases of rape or incest, and narrowing the definition of rape to “forcible rape.”
What on earth is nonforcible rape? It’s like saying nonlethal murder. Why redefine acts of aggression against women as non-acts of aggression?
Dowd also notes that ultra-anti-abortion Catholic bishops do not like the Romney/Ryan/tea party plans to shred the social safety net:
Mitt Romney expects his running mate to help deliver the Catholic vote and smooth over any discomfort among Catholics about Mormonism. (This is the first major-party ticket to go Protestant-less.) Yet after Ryan claimed his budget was shaped by his faith, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops deemed it immoral.
“A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons,” the bishops wrote in a letter to Congress.
The Jesuits were even more tart, with one group writing to Ryan that “Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Dowd may be cherry-picking here, since the US Catholic hierarchy have in other ways campaigned against Obama.
But she is right about the basic economic issues, and how Catholics and everyone else should be wary of the Romney/Ryan/tea party snake oil.
Dowd concludes with this zinger from Ryan's former parish priest:
Even Ryan’s former parish priest in Janesville weighed in. Father Stephen Umhoefer told the Center for Media and Democracy, “You can’t tell somebody that in 10 years your economic situation is going to be just wonderful because meanwhile your kids may starve to death.”
Beyond the even-keeled Ryan mien lurks full-tilt virulence. A moderate demeanor is not a sign of a moderate view of the world.
Read the whole thing, it's not all about Cheney and Catholics.
Dowd has seen through Ryan, and correctly identified him as a "full-tilt virulent" far-right ideologue, only chosen because a weak Republican presidential candidate needed to encourage his 27 percent base.
Hopefully, the rest of the corporate media will get that message, and stop lying to us that this Koch-funded and Murdoch-promoted serial liar is a "bold," courageous" "reformer."
And start telling us the truth about Paul Ryan.