Paul Ryan will be in a tough spot tonight. Everything he stands for, everything he has fought for throughout his career, was thrown under the bus when Mitt Romney did that about-face eight days ago. So now Ryan must debate Joe Biden – but how?
Romney trashed the Ryan agenda when he faced Barack Obama on the debate stage on October 3.
And since then, the Republican presidential candidate has back-pedaled even more, denying he would promote anti-abortion legislation, for example. In a shameless attempt to deceive American voters, he is pretending to be an oh-so-compassionate moderate despite all of his past declarations to the contrary.
Where does that leave Ryan?
The Republican vice-presidential candidate has one of the most extremely conservative records in Congress. He has sponsored legislation to ban abortion in cases of incest and rape. He has even proposed a law that would outlaw birth control pills.
His budget – with its privatization of Medicare, decimation of programs for the poor and tax cuts for the rich – is so oppressive that it motivated a group of Roman Catholic nuns to go on a bus tour to oppose it.
Ryan is a proud champion of the Ayn Rand school of thought, which basically says each of us is on our own and we are not our brothers’ keepers.
Rand, of course, was a ferocious atheist and Ryan is a staunch Roman Catholic. But, somehow, the Republican vice-presidential candidate has managed to rationalize this brutally self-centered philosophy with his religion. Not surprisingly, Catholic bishops have been quick to denounce that notion.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Ryan will appear on your TV screen to defend … what?
If he defends Mitt Romney’s new centrist agenda, Biden will cite Ryan’s record in stark contradiction.
Then what will Ryan do? Claim that he has had a come-to-Jesus conversion?
Repent of his previous callousness and promise to change his ways?
Surely, that would be greeted by derisive laughter.
I guess he could throw Romney under the bus – a tactic never before attempted in a vice-presidential debate.
Not even Romney could get away with that, and Romney, the Great Deceiver, is an unrivaled master of the art of dissembling.
I can’t wait to watch Ryan tonight.
This debate could put an end to the Romney-Ryan charade once and for all.
And it would not be a moment too soon.
