Paul Ryan Is the Joe McCarthy of Our Era. Maybe the Mainstream Media Finally Will Recognize That. Then Again, Maybe It Won’t.
Paul Ryan is, in effect, the Joe McCarthy of our era. He consistently spews outlandishly false statements of fact, never offers actual evidence in support of them and never refutes factual challenges using actual and full facts, and tries as a matter of routine to obfuscate his specific and broader objectives and therefore to trick the public.
He is a serious nutcase. And yet he has garnered mainstream media attention as though what he puts out is credible. We have a mainstream media that treats this nutjob as though he were a legitimate policy wonk. And that acts as though facts are legitimately in the eye of the beholder.
If only Obama were more like Ike. And if only there were an Edward R. Murrow around now, although a Walter Cronkite would do, too. If only.
Broadcast news, of course, no longer has nearly the power and audience it once had, but we now have the veritable reverse of what this country once had in its highest-profile journalists. and we have a president who cowers in the face of whatever media juggernaut is currently saying “boo.”
True, Ike was buoyed, not hindered, by the mainstream press when he helped end the McCarthy stranglehold. And McCarthy and Eisenhower were, technically anyway, members of the same political party, so there was no insistence that Eisenhower humor McCarthy in the name of bipartisanship. But there’s also no law that requires the president, this one or any other, to mindlessly do the mainstream media’s bidding if that bidding is in the name of bipartisanship. At least not when bipartisanship means delegating fiscal policy to a rightwing faction of a minority party that a majority of voters recently pretty-darned-clearly rejected.
This is getting really, really scary.
—-
The links are to two Matthew Yglesias posts in Slate this morning.
“In 1981, President Ronald Reagan inherited a stagnant economy and a tax code that featured 16
brackets, with a top rate of 70 percent. When he left office in 1989, the tax code had been simplified
down to just three brackets, with a top rate of 28 percent. President Reagan’s bipartisan tax reforms
proved to be a cornerstone of the unprecedented economic boom that occurred in the decade during
his presidency and continued in the decade that followed.”
Wow. Just unbelievable the kowtowing to the Reagan legacy myth that Ryan exhibits in his budget.
Any mention of what the deficits were at the end of the Reagan administration? Or of what the tax rates were on capital gains and interest and dividends? How about the number of retirees and near-retirees then as compared with now, because of something called the baby boom? No mention of that either? What about the huge increases in healthcare costs across the board? No?
Oh, but maybe he explains how we managed nonetheless to still be able to not gut Medicare or Medicaid, which is what he wants to do. No? No??
What about what the deficit was at the end of the Clinton presidency, after G,H.W. Bush and Clinton raised income tax rates? No? Any mention of how the economy managed to do so well then–despite no deficits and despite those two income tax rate raises? No? Really? No??
I don’t understand that. Ryan’s a young man, so he probably doesn’t suffer from dementia of some sort. Other than the deliberate, convenient kind.
Any mention of what the deficits were at the end of the Reagan administration? Or of what the tax rates were on capital gains and interest and dividends? How about the number of retirees and near-retirees then as compared with now, because of something called the baby boom? No mention of that either? What about the huge increases in healthcare costs across the board? No?
Oh, but maybe he explains how we managed nonetheless to still be able to not gut Medicare or Medicaid, which is what he wants to do. No? No??
What about what the deficit was at the end of the Clinton presidency, after G,H.W. Bush and Clinton raised income tax rates? No? Any mention of how the economy managed to do so well then–despite no deficits and despite those two income tax rate raises? No? Really? No??
I don’t understand that. Ryan’s a young man, so he probably doesn’t suffer from dementia of some sort. Other than the deliberate, convenient kind.
Beverly
I certainly agree with what you are daying and I share your concern regarding these current political circumstances. i would add, however, that Ryan is not alone in his interpretation of reality. McCarthy stood out from the crowd and only more so as he himself became more extreme. Ryan fits into a template that has been manufactured by the parties in the process of selecting their leadership and spoke people. Yes, Ryan is a liar and purveyour of deception. is that different from Mitch McConnell or “Crying” John Boehner? Can we listen to even John McCain talk about foreign policy without wondering where from comes his credentials to do so? And that doesn’t even begin to get down to the rank and file members of the House and the Senate. The leadership is deceptive and the party’s elected members, and their electorate in general, are often inane on top of that.
And this is not a problem which is limited to the Republican Party, though it does seem to be more virulent within that group. I don’t think that Native Americans actually used the term, but early TV westerns had the Indians pointing out that “white man speak with forked tongue.” In the case of the present Democratic Party we can include partly white man as well. Obama and his party, for the most part, don’t have a great record of keeping their word. Their adherence to the popular notion of democracy and the Constitution leaves much to be desired. It is an accident that Bradley Manning faces long term imprisonment while Bob Woodward has morfed into a useless scold? Is it not peculiar that Adam Swartz “stole” some data, mostly scientific and available behind pay walls and was hounded by the Justice Dept, yet not one bankster has been prosecuted for their involvement in the theft of billions? When did one ever think that the concept of extra-judicial execution would actually become a part of our political debate? We are moving backwards and for the time being Obama is just holding the tiller so we move in a straight line, but in reverse none the less.
Our political class seems, for the most part, to have no concern for the needs of the general public. What passes for bipartisan ideas would be more accurately described as corporatist, well right of the center ideology. See my comment on the current Open Thread. Seats in the Senate can be bought cheap in many small states. Seats in the House are based upon a crazy quilt set of representational districts that no longer take the concept of equality of representation seriously.
Beverly
also no mention of the role of the Fed in creating that stagnant economy, or that the stagnant economy continued under Reagan.. and got worse.. until the Fed was forced to quit “fighting inflation” by the failure of banks…due to the stagnant economy.
Also no mention of the recession under Bush the First.
But of course Reagan gets credit for the unprecedented economic boom under Clinton after the Republican congress refused to vote for the Clinton tax raises that were going to destroy the economy.
however i do fail to understand what SS has to do with it, or the high costs of medical care. medical care is part of “the economy.” as are SS benefits.
Calling Paul Ryan a modern day Joe McCarthy is an example of McCarthyism. Personal destruction by association. That you are incapable of seeing the irony in your assertions is very telling. And you compound your vicious slander by quoting reprobates like Matt Taibbi and now Matthew Yglesiais, two individuals who have a long record of intentionally lying about and defaming their political opponents and celebrating their untimely deaths.
Shame on you.
McCarthy and Ryan have two things in common; a bundle of spurious paper in their hand, and they both use their paper to kill the new deal for the current incarnation of anti-New Deal Bircher filling the media with blither.
Dale, I wasn’t referring to SS. But Medicare expenditures are so large now because healthcare costs in general have exploded so much in the last 30 years–especially in the last 20 years.
Seems irony is a funny thing, Peter. Ryan is different from McCarthy–and from you–in that he (Ryan) does not set out to destroy or defame targeted individuals by name. But he is similar to McCarthy in some important respects–in his tactics, especially his reliance on disinformation and his attempt to hide from the public his motive and his real goal, and also in what appears to be a wink-and-nod approach to him by some mainstream journalists.
He is attempting to undermine democracy via subterfuge. That’s really sinister. Yet the press treats him as a legitimate policy wonk–as if legitimate policy wonks falsify facts and hide their true agenda.
“He is attempting to undermine democracy via subterfuge.” Beverly
You can’t undermine what doesn’t truly exist. There is a difference between not living under a dictatorial regime chosen by the power of the gun and, on the other hand, living in an increasingly plutocratic government chosen other than by the one person, one vote paradigm that democracy implies. The USofA still guarantees its citizens what seems to be full freedom of choice, but the choice is to bote for the least obnoxious candidate and the freedoms are slowly but steadily eording under our noses. An Imperial Presidency doesn’t necessarily mean one man rule, but rule by only a few dozen can be equally oppressive.
beverly said
“How about the number of retirees and near-retirees then as compared with now, because of something called the baby boom?”
then she said
“I wasn’t referring to SS”
so my question still remains: what does “the number of retirees…” have to do with what Ryan said about the Miracle of Reagan?
Similar question about healthcare costs.
Jack, I agree with most of what you said, but the fact remains that about five million more people did vote for Obama than for Romney/Ryan last November, and that the two candidates did run on the diametrically opposing fiscal policy proposals that are at issue now; that more people voted for Democratic senate candidates than Republican ones; and that about 1.5 million more people voted for Dem House candidates than Repub ones. And everyone who voted knew the opposing fiscal agendas of the candidates and parties.
There is a reason why Ryan keeps trying subterfuge. Ryan knows that the more the public learns about what he’s up to, the more people run from it, from his party, and from him.
Dale, Reagan’s era had much lower Medicare costs and much lower near-term Medicare costs. And his tax reductions still exploded the budget, but not as much as they would have if healthcare costs were what they are now and if the baby boomers were retiring or near retirement, as they are now. Yet Ryan holds up the Reagan tax cuts and tax rates as terrific (if not quite low enough) and claims that a tax-rate reduction is the way to go when you’re trying to BALANCE the budget.
Wow. If Obama doesn’t remind people of the exploding budget deficit at the end of the Reagan presidency WITH a good economy, and DESPITE much lower healthcare costs, then he’s hopelessly lame.
Beverly
I’m not disagreeing with you in noting that the mass of the people are far more populist minded than is evidenced by election results or the government that we have. My premise is more that those populist ideals do not, for the msot part, extend to our elected representatives. That is the result of our less than democratic electoral process both Constitutionally as refelcted by the structure of the Senate, and maniputively as witnessed by the meandering nature of House district lines within so many states.
Yes, Obama is not the absurd character that is Mitt Romney. That he could run for the Presidency and not even try to be careful about his aristocratic pronouncements raises serious question as to his seriousness in that effort. Obama is not Mitt, but nor is Obama FDR, Truman not even LBJ. The latter in regards to effective legislative actions in favor of the mass of the people. Too bad Obama seems to share LBJs tragic flaw in regards to foreign adventure and policy.
That’s the problem Beverly, we’re not offered a populist progressive. We don’t have a genuine left of center Democrat in the White House. The Executive is right of the center line and tacking further still. Absurdities like Romney, Ryan and their cohorts seem only to serve as the scary alternative. So some how Obama can express all the progressive ideals that he knows the public wants to hear, but its his inaction in that regard that has to be focused upon. A compromise between the Ryan concept of a budget and Obama’s recommendations puts us in a classic corporatist financial/econonic ideology. Obama needs to be on the left side of himself so he can compromise and be only to the right of center.
Bev
social security still has nothing to do with the budget deficit. that is critical to keep in mind.
and as a matter of fact neither does medicare… for now.
the exploding budget deficit this time is because of the Bush wars and the Bush tax cuts and the bi partisan destruction of the economy by the banks.
meanwhile not only doesn’t Ryan understand that Obama won the election: neither does Obama.
“..meanwhile not only doesn’t Ryan understand that Obama won the election: neither does Obama.” Coberly
Much more succinct, but my point exactly. The neither does Obama part, that is. Or maybe Obama didn’t mean all the tough talk of his campaign rhetoric.
Five books for BM to check out.
#1 Witchcraze by Barstow.
Your witch hunt motivated by the three elements of Witchcraze
A)Lack of penalty for lying. B)Use of outside prosecutors C)Faulty scientific evidence
Yes. Progressive prosecutors in their hurry to clean up Christendom eliminated the penalty for lying.
That was the single biggest cause for the sudden surge in accusations of witch craft. Kind of like the way the elimination of the penalty for lying created a plague of false accusations in child abuse.
You can make any kind of claim and pay nothing for it socially, or in terms of business. Hell, you might even make more money by being a favorite daughter of the Inquisitional/Witch-crazed left.
B) Use of outside prosecutors. Of course, you are both the accusing witness and the prosecution. Well, gee, that is, the Bay Area never read Whittaker Chambers’ Witness so they could understand what actually went on as Hiss, coming of his his illusions of communism under Stalin, outed Alger Hiss and White.
In other words, there is no one your ideological divide that knows the people involved as anything other than cocktail party chatter and gossip and innuendo. That includes you, apparently.
C Faulty scientific evidence “proving” demonic possession.
Being a little hard on you, Bev? Don’t think so. A typical public relations exec, if that is what you are, and, unfortunately many in the financial community, think economics is a science.
This is simply not true. More like schools of Natural Philosophy aided by statistical analysis and Einstein-ian “thought experiments”.
That idiot’s view of science is what gives the left the illusion of having the right to make Inquisitional accusations. You assume total ownership of the truth, and that anyone disagreeing with you is a purveyor of moral devilry.
European welfare states are dying. I lived there eleven years and know what the hell I am talking about. Applying a Ryan-esque criticism to Obama’s same lack of foresight is not the equivalent of accusing anyone of spying for the State Dept. PERIOD.
It is the opposite. Your accusation is McCarthy-esque and if it only as accurate as McCarthy’s and the HUAC were.
Book #2 As to the origins of your fear about the intent and the effect of Ryan’s budget plan: We need look no further than Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, a book I know you have really no acquaintance with.
Chambers’ said that all modern liberals get hysterical at the mere mention of the attempt to find out who was a communist, even a Soviet agent, because their character structure, their world-view and values set them up to be in total harmony with communism.
The recent article on Harry Dexter White is a great example of this left-wing moral mania gone wild that leads to active collusion with communism or passive collusion as the left tries to impede every broaching of the question about communism and communists.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138847/benn-steil/red-white
In your accusation, there is the clear premise of Ryan’s opposition to undisciplined and parasitic growth of the federal government as if he were Joe McCarthy. That someone with such a softball approach to fiscal discipline is a threat to you is a sign of something amiss. That you think he is “McCarthy”, who was right about communists in the State Dept and elsewhere, is a sign of bad conscience.
Book #3, #4, and #5.
OK. I will introduce them all at once.
Bubble Man: Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars is written by an economic journalist Peter Hartcher who is an Australian journalist and the Political and International Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. He is also a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based foreign policy think tank.
Greenspan and now Bernanke are just bubble-men. The latest bubble is the present Dow high. The only question is the extent to which the Dow record reflects the internationalization of the US economy at the expense of the middle class.
U know what the “internationalization” means. It means that real estate bubbles in New York and the Bay Area are sustained by the growth of international commerce. There is no allegiance to the American middle class and the bad conscience of the elite is assuaged by its commitment to making them comfortable in their new “serfdom” of just being one more people of the many peoples of the world by raising taxes on the rich and promising what cannot be promised even at pre-JFK tax rates.
Oh, yes! But the “protection” comes with a caveat: You, the middle class are without any real power to make their government respond to you. Hence, open borders, amnesty with a path to voting, and “free trade”.
Where would the internationalization of US business be without the commitment to Faux Free Trade and the acceptance of Japan/China/etc, manipulating currency?
I mean all those internationalized business want to be able to really predict their costs when setting up those internationalized supply chains that keep the upper class happy. No?
Currency Wars by Rickard would really blow your whole half-formed, repeat-the-econ-cliché-while-going-for-jugular of a personal attack. Gee, there you might see actual econ interests being defended however badly.
You would understand why in the recent trip to the White House the president of Brazil was angry with Obama. Printing up all those dollars debases the dollar and appreciated the Real. End result: it’s a lot harder for Brazil to export to the US. Same for China, etc.
Are we exploiting Third World countries by debasing the dollar? Would an “anti-colonialist” president dare do such a thing? Gee, maybe. Would he maybe mask it with a loan to Brazil and Soros to allow the very deep and dangerous oil-drilling he had just banned in the Gulf of Mexico?
Kind of like proposing a raise in the minimum wage after raising taxes on the poorest people in the US, huh?
You should also want to read Endgame by Mauldin and Tepper. Without going in to the details, let’s just say that the US has tried to stop the plunges and contractions that by eliminating them, as if we could grow forever given the right econ Rx. Simply not true. So, what we face is similar to the result of the constant vigilance of putting out forest fires in the US. Eventually there is a very big, impossible to contain meltdown. In Mexico, hell, they are not organized. Small fires take out the organic forest trash regularly and big fires are virtually non-existent.
Then you could have a real dialogue with people who disagree with you in part.
As in, yes, Beverly, we could keep going on deficit spending if we invested (correct use of the word) in our infrastructure rather than allowing healthy 62 year olds to retire or to get Cadillac health care plans on the public’s dime when the public is broke.
Obamacare will destroy the Obama presidency, by the way. Just talk, day in, day out, with execs, many of whom actually voted for Obama and thought they could live with that imperfect reform. Not happening.
Roy Cameron
I thought your essay had the earmarks of paranoid personality disorder
and then i got to “allowing healthy 62 year olds to retire…”
even though they paid for it themselves. surely there is work for them to do in Siberia.
slavery much?
as for health care on the public dime… again… they are ‘the public,’ they paid for it themselves. and if you think “the rich” paid more than “their fair share”… i might be tempted to agree with you for reasons you would not understand. but “the rich” are by definition not “broke.”
Beverly,
Questioning people’s motives and assigning evil motives to them is an example of McCarthyism
There are many intelligent, fair-minded, well-meaning economists who agree with Ryan. The issues are complex.
In short,you defame Ryan personally because you dislike his political views. Precisely what McCarthy did.
It is vile to compare anyone to McCarthy just as it is vile to compare anyone to Hitler. You know this and that’s precisely why you do it.
In accusing Ryan of McCarthyism you engage in McCarthyism. Shakesperae called this being hoisted by your own petard.
Just point out why the man is wrong. No need to demonize his motives and compare him to one of the most nefarious characters in American history.
You are better than this, Beverly.
I think.
Peter
it is entirely legitimate to compare someone to hitler or mccarthy or donald duck.
it may be that the comparison fails, but we are not going to get anywhere if we let someone… with dubious motives… decide what we can and cannot say.
as for being hoist on your own petard… well, not quite.
coberly,
I think your motives are dubious in making that statement therefore you are guilty of McCarthyism.
That is the logic that you are promoting and the logic that Beverly Mann is employing.
Sad when people are so un-self-aware that they do not notice that in accusing others of a particular sin they engage in that sin themselves.
Comparing someone to McCarthy and putting that in your blog post title helps you get traffic.
I understand why Beverly did it, but that doesn’t make it right.
You’re right, Peter. That doesn’t make it right. What makes it right is the analogy itself, as far as it goes. And I explained how far I think it goes.
It turns out, btw, that I’m not the first one ton the Web to draw that analogy. Someone named Jed Shivers posted this two months ago as a Comment to an article by Max Berley on Bloomberg News, titled Paul Ryan Comes Out Swinging:
jed shivers 1 month agoCollapse
“Paul Ryan is a classic Wisconsin Demagogue in the Joe McCarthy mode. He’s as sincere as it takes to get re-elected. This guy spent like crazy in the George W. Stupid years. Now he’s supposed to be a budget hawk. Look at the data put out by the St. Louis fed. The graph shows that for the first time since the early 1960’s federal expenditures at all levels have been flat for much of the Obama administration. That has not happened for almost fifty years.
“the real issue with Ryan are his nihilistic views about economics. When you have a major recession/depression you have to do counter cyclic spending with government funds. You can certainly argue that Obama could have spent that money differently (the irony is that he spent a year or two bolstering both democratic and republican state budgets), but a significant depression was staved off.
“In Ryan world we really don’t know what he would have done, because of his profound hypocrisy.”
I just saw that today.
Beverly,
The fact that someone else did it, too, doesn’t make it right. I already know there are millions of radical leftists who will accuse Republicans of anything in order to gain a political advantage. I just didn’t know it extended to the ordinarily fair Angry Bear.
Comparing Ryan to McCarthy is vile. Live with it or retract it.
I totally agree with your comparison of Ryan and McCarthy. The similarities are frightening. The only thing supporting his rants is the enormous ego he has, just like McCarthy had. Sooner or hopefully not later he will trip himself up and go up against someone bigger and badder, who will call him out. Thank you for seeing thru the “BS”.