Paul Ryan Is Great, Even If His Ideas Need Work

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by Smitty

Rep. Paul Ryan is that absolutely rare political animal who manages to be at once wonkish and likeable.
In a system geared by election frequency toward myopia, he has had the unmitigated gall to offer something like a tangible plan to work on the most pressing fiscal problems besetting the country. Note that I don’t say ‘fix’ or ‘solve’: the ‘F’ and ‘S’ words are indicators that whoever has the floor is either (a) stupid or (b) thinks you are stupid.
Here he is on Fox on 21Apr10:

Ryan’s plan is important. Its very existence belies the claim that the GOP has no ideas. Also, it argues an evolutionary change. Whereas many, for example, me, would argue that we should just admit that Federal entitlements are a 10th Amendment violation and boil them down for glue, Ryan’s plan is a far more realistic compromise in favor of something workable.

This admission does not mean that pressure to kill Federal entitlements should be removed. It doesn’t mean that chucklehead Brooks has won a new pair of nicely creased chinos. Rather, that the admission that there is merit in Ryan’s plan means it’s OK to club the beast on a variety of levels to bring about the necessary demise. Get bent, Brooks.
Via the Barracuda Bridage, Newsmax did a Ryan interview that his fans may find interesting. This rather friendly interview elaborates on the topics from the Fox clip in a little more detail. At the end, the interviewer throws out the executive branch bait, which Ryan refuses to admit giving any thought. Ryan is not thinking about it now, but fell well short of a Sherman denial. And why should he not?
For all I like and would support Ryan, individual entitlements are not a Federal issue. The sooner we overcome the cranial rectalitis on this point, the sooner we can set about un-baking the situation.

‘An Intellectual Grievance Culture’

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Jonah Goldberg hits the nail on the head in describing the phenomenon we might as well call Friedersdorfism:

When I first came to Washington, I hung around in very similar circles of young eager-beavers. I may not have been as smart as many of them, but I was just as determined to get my articles published and make my mark. We had many gripe sessions conversations about how hard it was to break-in at places like NR, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal etc. But, because Al Gore hadn’t gotten around to inventing the internet yet, there was no place for me to vent these complaints in print, never mind work them up into a meta-narrative about the decrepit state of conservatism.
That’s not the case for today’s 20-somethings who have the luxury of translating their frustration with “the business” into long cri de coeur blog posts and essays that tend to bounce off one another for reinforcement. Instead of late night griping at the Toledo Lounge, the way we did things in the 1990s, the conversation has gone public. Indeed, so public that it has become something of an intellectual grievance culture all its own.

Exactly. Given that I’m 10 years older than Goldberg, I was already well into my 30s before the Internet began to revolutionize publishing, and was past 40 when blogging became a phenomenon.

Friedersdorf, at 30, graduated college at the dawn of the blogging age, and never had to earn his living as a journalist in a world where there was no online alternative to print. (Marla Edwards, a reporter I worked with at the Rome [Ga.] News-Tribune in the 1990s, was one of the first hires at CNN’s Web site, and I remember how strange it seemed to the rest of us when she tried to explain her new job. How does that work? You mean, all you’re doing is writing updates for an Internet page?)

The impatience of ambitious youth is such that the Young Turks always resent the Old Guard — sic semper hoc — but this familiar situation is now aggravated by the ease with which Young Turks can find outlets for their resentment and have those resentments reinforced by their peers.

In a world where anybody with a Blogspot account can be a pundit, the genuinely ambitious youngsters now consider themselves failures if they’re not recognized as genuine public intellectuals by the time they attend their five-year college reunion. (When I attended my five-year reunion, I was the sports editor of a twice-weekly Georgia paper and counted that as success.)

Predictably, Friedersdorf responds to Goldberg with — what else? — a long cri de couer blog post, which is immediately seconded by Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress. (Yglesias mocks conservative journalism as a “nice, very cushy gravy train” — as opposed to the grueling conditions for Harvard grads at John Podesta’s Center for American Progress. )

At some point, you think these kids would grow tired of their intellectual wankfests or at least realize they’re trapping themselves in a narrow career niche. But among other things, the Internet can foster the illusion that there is a vast market demand for such obscure political squabbles, when what the online world actually craves is chubby chicks in lingerie commercials.

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

National Security Advisor Archie Bunker

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No need to get all outrageously outraged here, but Gen. James Jones ought to have thought twice before telling Jew jokes at a foreign-policy seminar:

Professor William Jacobson observes:

I have no problem with the joke. I think we have to be able to laugh at ourselves, including laughing at stereotypes; in humor we often expose the stereotype rather than build upon it.
That said, this is another one of those “can you imagine” moments. Substitute blacks or latinos or gays or almost any other group for Jews, and the joke playing on old stereotypes never would have been told by Jones. And if it were, Jones already would be gone from the administration.

And not only that, “can you imagine” if an official in a Republican administration had told that joke on camera? Oy, vey!

Via Memeorandum, with more reaction from Stephen Green at Vodkapundit, Israel Matzav, Scott Johnson at Power Line, Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit, Dan Riehl at Riehl World View, DaTechguy and Roger Simon.

UPDATE: The predictable denouement: Abe Foxman complains, Jones apologizes. Another triumph of multicultural sensitivity in the Obama Age. How about a “beer summit” at the White House?

If Al Sharpton Is Against It . . .

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. . . the new Arizona immigration law must be right:

The Rev. Al Sharpton says he’s ready to travel to Arizona and march in the streets to protest the state’s new immigration law.
Sharpton joined Lillian Rodriguez Lopez from the Hispanic Federation in New York City on Sunday to speak out against the law. They say activists are prepared to commit civil disobedience to fight it.

Last I heard, 70% of Arizona voters approved of the new law. If that ridiculous demagogue Al Sharpton starts leading protest marches in Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson? Expect approval to reach at least 80%.

Rule 5 Sunday

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by Smitty

I normally like to post Rule 5 Sunday a bit earlier, but I was out of town Friday/Saturday, and it takes a while to cruise the cache. Particularly when there has been so much wonderful posting of late.

That’s your Rule 5 Sunday. Pray for peace, endure hardship for truth, and settle for no falsehood.