House Speaker Paul Ryan finally decided to take issue with the occupier of the Oval Office, and The New York Times has taken notice of the timing. Ryan has deferred to Trump on just about everything thus far, has refused to take action on immigration, on school shootings, on Russian interference in our elections (well, almost), but decided that Trump's new tariffs are too potentially damaging to Republicans' midterm election prospects. So that gives the Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg the opportunity to talk about the boy wonder in a mess of a profile that tries to figure out why this hero has feet of clay.
Why has this "fierce believer in America as a land of immigrants" ceded all his power on immigration to Trump? Why has this "outspoken, almost brash leader, determined to bring his party along with his vision of governance" decided to "wield his gavel gingerly"? The reason, apparently, is "unity."
But in the name of unity, he has governed with a light hand. Last month, the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee confronted Mr. Ryan after they concluded that the House Intelligence Committee had leaked a senator’s private texts — a serious breach of protocol. Although the senators raised concerns about the direction of the committee under its chairman, Devin Nunes of California, Mr. Ryan apparently chose not to intervene. [...]
If Mr. Ryan is known for one quality, House Republicans say, it is his willingness to listen. Members of his conference view him as “inclusive and fair,” said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania.
Right. The possibility that Ryan, "the leader once described as 'the intellectual center of Republicans in the House'" is not all that apparently has yet to occur to Stolberg. That he's not a principled anything, that he's not actually all that intellectual and doesn't actually have the ability to be a leader, that all he knows is pure partisanship and blind loyalty doesn't seem possible to her. Instead, she bemoans that "[c]auses that were once Mr. Ryan's signature fights—an exploding budget deficit, soaring Medicare and Social Security spending and an entrenched welfare state—are on nobody's must-do list."
She does interview one Democrat:
“Can you imagine Tip O’Neill or Sam Rayburn or any of the portraits in this gallery saying, 'I don't know whether I can be for that, I've got to go down the street and ask permission of the president'?" asked Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, referring to previous speakers whose portraits hang just outside the House chamber.
And counters with Ryan's spokesperson AshLee Strong: "Speaker Ryan has taken on all the challenges of the modern speakership and deftly kept the conference united while advancing an historic conservative agenda." Uh, huh.
There's something that the boy wonder did that Stolberg misses, however. That would be Ryan's proactively making it easier for Russia to hack the 2018 election by removing the head of the federal agency that has helped U.S. states protect election systems. Seems like Ryan is doing just what Ryan has always done.