Paul Ryan's RNC Speech

[knapplc]

Unless you want to beat Obama over the head for the 57 states thing, I don't understand how you could be still hanging onto this one.

 

Exactly. This is worse than a non-issue. It's a talking point that detracts from what we should really be doing - hiring someone for president who can fix the problems that plague us. Anything else is a dog-and-pony show intended to distract us.

 

Sad thing is, they're all probably trying to distract us from the fact that none of these clowns has any idea how to fix our problems - that or no desire to fix them, because they're profiting from them too much.

[carlfense]

Unless you want to beat Obama over the head for the 57 states thing, I don't understand how you could be still hanging onto this one.

I don't recall the exact quote . . . did Obama say that there were "more than 56 states," then "somewhere between 55-59 states," and then "57 states."

 

If so, I agree. Quite comparable.

 

If I told you I swam a 3:30 400 IM once, would you have to look that up before being able to tell if it is a ridiculous claim or not?

Poor analogy. The difference being that in your analogy you're talking about me having to look up the facts when you were the one who swam the race. We're not talking about whether the layman would find Ryan's claim believable . . . we're talking about the knowledge of the person who ran actually ran the race.

 

Either way, I don't really care. Liars are going to lie and it looks pretty clear to me that Ryan was lying here. Where does that lie rate on 0-10 scale of importance? About a .10.

[carlfense]

This is worse than a non-issue. It's a talking point that detracts from what we should really be doing - hiring someone for president who can fix the problems that plague us.

Hard to argue with that. Sorry for raising the issue.

[zoogs]

If I were to say I swam a 3:30 *I* wouldn't have any idea either. The point is if you're competing in something at a very casual level, you probably have little sense in your head about the numbers. Now, you may continue to believe that Paul Ryan deliberately fabricated this because he believed it would boost his candidacy. I just find it hard to believe someone as reasonable as you would really think that.

 

I do think it has been a worthwhile topic to raise, however -- in that it demonstrates how distracting purely partisan backlash can be. Although it isn't unfair that a gaffe should get some attention, I guess.

[carlfense]

If I were to say I swam a 3:30 *I* wouldn't have any idea either. The point is if you're competing in something at a very casual level, you probably have little sense in your head about the numbers.

I'm not a distance runner . . . or a competitive runner at all, for that matter . . . but you have to be something more than a 1 mile jogger to run a marathon. It's not quite like doing a 10K. (I've attended more marathons than I'd care to admit . . . my sister got most of the carlfense family athletic genes.)

 

Now, you may continue to believe that Paul Ryan deliberately fabricated this because he believed it would boost his candidacy. I just find it hard to believe someone as reasonable as you would really think that.

I don't believe that at all. If I implied that I should have worded it differently.

 

I tried to make that clear with this:

Liars are going to lie . . . even when there is absolutely no reason to do so:

Sort of like the fat short kid in college who swears that he used to dunk back in high school. Why tell that lie? I don't really know. Rolls off the tongue I guess.

[zoogs]

The guy ran one marathon 20 years ago, and his pace was over 9 minutes per mile. That's fairly casual, isn't it?

 

As fit as the guy is, he can't have been training very hard for that one, and it does appear it was the only one he ran. And I am not directing this just at you, but a great many in the media appear to be not letting this one go, or portraying it as a lie.

 

I think it is almost certain that he was grasping at the number of hours and incorrectly settled at 3 instead of 4. He could not have had any idea he was claiming to run a full marathon at 6:50/mile pace, and I find nothing unbelievable about his later explanation of the mistake. I'd agree with you that he is pretty slick and loose with the facts in the political arena, so let's hold him accountable for that. But the media focus on this is sort of nuts.

[carlfense]

The guy ran one marathon 20 years ago, and his pace was over 9 minutes per mile. That's fairly casual, isn't it?

Hell no! 9 minutes per mile for 26 miles?

[zoogs]

Well, yeah. Consider that Sarah Palin, at age 41, ran it in a shade under 4 hours. This was Paul Ryan at age 20.

 

I'm not saying it's a bad time, because it's safely above average for that gender/age group. However, I think it's what you might expect out of a guy who is fit and athletic, but not doing hardcore intensive training for the thing. The 3-hour mark is a gold standard for many people. In his age group, he would have needed a 3:05:00 just to qualify for the Boston Marathon this year, and those standards have been relaxed from times past. Ryan's time is a solid 2+ minutes slower, *per mile*, which IMO, is several tiers of seriousness later.

 

Last year I ran a half semi-seriously (that is, for a total amateur who had never run a registered race before) but I couldn't promise you that I'd have a good grasp of the numbers after twenty years and not running another one. Everyone's approach is different though...I just find the arguments I've read that Paul Ryan "had to have" remembered the exact time to be pretty specious and entirely speculative.

 

Putting on my tin foil hat here, the one thing I suppose might be possible is that Paul Ryan purposely went through this tongue-slipping charade in order to distract from larger factual issues with his record and his VP candidacy. You know, bait the other side with stuff they'll jump at and look bad in the process of doing so. That'd be pretty devious and shrewd, but hey, I'm just tossing stuff out here.

[strigori]

My issue with Ryan lying about something like this has nothing to do with it being about the marathon. It speaks to an underling issue of character. He is either a pathological liar. Or he falls into the group of people who are 'one-uppers. Everything you can do he can do better sort of mindset. And prone to self delusion. I'm sure everyone knows the type, the person who is always the hero in stories they tell, they are always the one who had the plan, or made the tough call. Regardless of facts. Dangerous psychological issues for someone who has his eyes set on high national office, and a breath from the Presidency.