A Great Republican Leader Appears (again...)

As a sidelight to my comment below on Paul Ryan, and the mainstream press's willingness to trumpet this absolutely party line Republican tax slasher as the economic demigod of the modern era, I give you David Brooks babbling away at the New York Times last year, courtesy of Welcome to Pottersville 2.  His comments are almost insufferable, but this is a great demonstration of what happens when the press tries to "balance" the analysis of Paul Krugman, or even the snark of Maureen Dowd with some conservative committed to nothing but pushing the same old Republican lies:

"What they lacked was courageous political leadership — a powerful elected official willing to issue a proposal, willing to take a stand, willing to face the political perils.

The country lacked that leadership until today. Today, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, is scheduled to release the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Ryan is expected to leap into the vacuum left by the president’s passivity. The Ryan budget will not be enacted this year, but it will immediately reframe the domestic policy debate.

His proposal will set the standard of seriousness for anybody who wants to play in this discussion. It will become the 2012 Republican platform, no matter who is the nominee. Any candidate hoping to win that nomination will have to be able to talk about government programs with this degree of specificity, so it will improve the G.O.P. primary race."

Can anyone even comprehend the depths of self-deception necessary for Brooks to have written this hagiographic pile of garbage, about a run-of-the-mill Republican with no more ideas than to cut taxes on the rich, and let the devil take the hindmost?   Here's more:

"...the important thing is the way Ryan would reform programs. He would reform the tax code along the Simpson-Bowles lines, but without the tax increases."

Right.  He'd slash taxes on the rich, and still cut four trillion from future spending.  And where is this money going to come from?  That, he wouldn't say, and still won't to this day.  That's because we all know perfectly well where he intends to get the money- from the ever-dwindling amount the Federal government spends on all of the rest of us.

Brooks' column was titled "Moment of Truth."  "Moment of the Same Old Lies" would have been more accurate; and now thanks to this sort of disingenuous hero-worship, we are stuck with Paul Ryan, the latest in a long line of dishonest Republican hucksters, as our 'bold, brilliant" VP candidate.