Thursday 6 September 2012

pants on fire


Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential candidate because he brings some ideas to Romney's endlessly vacillating table. He seems like a a conviction Conservative and that's fine. Politics should be a battle between ideas.

Except Paul Ryan's ideas are based on made up facts and impossible economics (agree economists across the spectrum). He made a barnstorming convention speech but was it just a load of big, fat lies? The New York TimesAtlantic and FOX NEWS(!) said it was.

People will probably just say, 'All politicians are as bad as each other!' This is not true. The difference between lies like Ryan's and the selective truths spoken by most politicians are very real, but they are complicated and most people don't have the time or energy to think them through.

However, last week Ryan told a hilarious big, fat lie about running a marathon in under 3 hrs. This is a serious time, and any runner of a marathon knows it. He actually ran a marathon in just over 4hrs. Why does this matter? It shows to people without the time to sift the economic stuff that this is a guy who really is a liar. About all kinds of stuff.

Bonus 1: There was a great New Yorker piece on another marathon liar a few weeks ago. This dentist's fibs included taking short cuts and inventing the West Wyoming marathon. If you wear the West Wyoming finishers t-shirt above to a meeting of serious runners, they will find it funny. Here are more of their jokes on this theme.

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