by Paul Krugman
Jonathan Chait notes that people are still trying to cast Paul Ryan as reasonable and moderate — hey, he visits bookstores favored by liberals. As Chait says, this sort of political evaluation by personal style is unreliable at best; and Ryan quite clearly deliberately exploits it, too, making moderate noises without ever giving an inch on his hard-line right-wing policies. Remember, this is the guy who pretended to offer a budget based on fiscal responsibility, but when you took out the magic asterisks it was really tax cuts for the rich, severe benefit cuts for the poor, and overall would actually increase the deficit.
I would add that Ryan isn’t just exploiting the press corp’s preference for up-close-and-personal over policy analysis; he’s also exploiting the eternal search for a Serious, Honest, Conservative, a creature centrists know must be out there somewhere (because otherwise their centrism is a colossal error of judgment).
But let’s not make this just about Ryan, or even about conservatism (although conservatives have been the main beneficiaries of the up-close-and-personal syndrome.) The fact is that attempts to judge politicians by how they come across have been almost universally disastrous during my whole tenure at the Times. Younger readers may not remember the days when George W. Bush was universally portrayed in the press as a bluff, honest, guy; those of us who pointed to his lies about taxes and Social Security and suggested that these were a better guide to his character than how he came across got nowhere until years later. John McCain rode for many years on a reputation as a principled maverick, because that’s the way he talked; I think his shameless embrace of every right-wing twist and turn has dented that reputation, but he’s still the darling of Sunday morning talk.
And then, of course, there was the irrefutable case for invading Iraq, irrefutable because Colin Powell made it, and only a fool or a Frenchman could fail to be persuaded. Or, maybe, someone who asked what actual evidence Powell had presented and noticed that there wasn’t any.
Meanwhile, some public figures face the reverse treatment, portrayed as evil and devious because reporters have decided that this is how they come across. E.g., Hillary Clinton, whose harsh treatment by the press has nothing to do with her gender, no way, no how. Or Mitt Romney, portrayed as smarmy and unlikable because — well, actually, he really is smarmy and unlikable, but you should reach that judgment based on his policies, not his persona.
Back to Ryan: the really amazing thing about the persistence of his personality cult is that economic and budget policy is his chosen area, where he has left a broad paper trail. So there is plenty of evidence about what he really believes and stands for, every bit of which says that his overriding goal is to redistribute income from the poor to the one percent. If you want to claim otherwise, show me anything — anything at all — in his policy proposals that doesn’t go in that direction.
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