That's Gail Collins, commenting on a line in Paul Ryan's CPAC speech in her column today, Lunch on the Barricades.
The Ryan line in question was “What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul.”
Summarized by Collins, "Ryan’s point was that mothers who pack their children’s lunches are showing their love, while kids who get their food from the cafeteria lady will feel that nobody cares."
Ryan's speech and that story have been discussed at length. Yet in addition to the story's plagiarism (Ryan stole the story); deceit (The source meant the opposite); and irony/hypocrisy (Ryan received "soul-emptying" social security benefits himself), we can't forget that the heart of the right's darkness is embodied in that line.
Collins focuses on the Mom's guilt:
Most American mothers feel remarkably successful when everybody gets off to school with matching socks. Now Paul Ryan wants to tell them they’ve committed child abuse by failure to fill a brown bag.
(Note: My teenage daughters wear different colored socks on purpose every day. If that's a widespread fashion statement, at least that's one burden lifted from mothers.)
Collins then discusses how school-lunch-hatred complements Obama-hatred, in this case toward Michelle and the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act," the fascist/nutrition program passed back in 2010 before the House was taken over by Mr. Potter, Mr. Burns, Mssrs. Koch and the sadist/lunatic caucus. As Collins notes:
the basic idea of providing healthy subsidized meals for public school students used to be universally accepted. Like Social Security, or federally funded bridge reconstruction.
That captures the greater point: The successful campaign by Republicans to shift the debate -- to rip apart the post-war consensus that those things were not just a "safety net," but a vital part of America's success in that period and the creation of the middle class. Everything that was non-controversial and centrist, like periodic minimum wage increases, extended unemployment insurance, environmental regulation and yes, school lunches, is now "leftist," up for grabs, and the policies of FDR and the Great Society are "socialist."
I will re-phrase Rep. Ryan's quote:
Paul Ryan's empty soul is offering empty stomachs to people he doesn't know and therefore doesn't care about.
Rust Cohle said: "If you ask me the light is winning.”
I hope he's right.