Sorry for two diaries so quickly, but in the wake of this week, I think we could all use a little humor. And who better to have a little humor with than at Paul Ryan's expense? Especially when the incident I'm talking about involves one of my favorite shows, House of Cards?
Warning: For those of you interested in seeing House of Cards, I will be discussing SPOILERS!!! (EEK!!!) Do not read on if you do not wish to be spoiled.
As you might have guessed, House of Cards has gotten quite a few fans among the political class, most notably the Clintons, as shown by this recent Kevin Spacey-starring spoof that Hillary did for Bill's birthday. However, Paul Ryan is not one of them. Now, you may think that a partisan Republican like Ryan might enjoy Cards, since Spacey's amoral, Machiavellian politico Frank Underwood is a Democrat and thus might make the other side look bad. But, as he said in a recent Parade magazine profile, Ryan didn't make it past the first couple episodes. Why?
I watched the first couple of episodes until he cheated on his wife with that reporter. It turned my stomach so much that I just couldn’t watch it anymore. His behavior was so reprehensible, and it hit too close to home because he was a House member, that it just bothered me too much. And what I thought is, it makes us all look like we’re like that.
That's what made you stop watching, Paul? The
Washington Post weighed in:
Let's just say, if that was too much for Ryan, it's probably good he didn't keep watching.
Indeed, as Frank Underwood has, among other dastardly deeds,
suffocated a fellow Congressman to death in a staged suicide and
pushed that reporter he was sleeping with in front of a train. I think those kind of outweigh the adultery angle (something, by the way, that Robin Wright's Claire Underwood is not only openly aware of, but encourages).
But this just kind of show's Paul Ryan's crabbed world-view. The guy who views on the poor are "out of the 19th century and whose well-known Ayn Rand worship is such that I half-expect it'll be revealed he dug up her corpse and keeps it in his closet for "private sessions" is offended by the depiction of an adulterous congressman. Because ruining the social safety net and letting people starve is A-OK, but a congressman sleeping around (yeah, that's never happened before, right?) is something he simply can't handle.
I close with this classic paragraph:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Consider this your humor boost for the day.