Charles C. W. Cooke, editorial associate for National Review, comments on Ryan Hysteria:
.... As well there should be, there will be criticism as long as there is politics; and, certainly, one would not expect the Left to like Paul Ryan very much. For starters, Ryan has long had the gauche temerity to observe — in public, no less — that all is not rosy in America’s fiscal future. In doing so, he seems determined to play Senator Seneca to President Obama’s Nero, and it is for this, as much as anything else, that he has carved out his role as Enemy No. 1 of the progressive Left.
Those who believe that entitlements run on good intentions will always hate men who come armed with spreadsheets, especially when those spreadsheets neatly explode the myth that all of America’s problems can be solved by increasing taxes on the rich. But Pierce’s hyperbole transcends mere disagreement, as does his dismissal of all those who dissent as “gobshites.” Instead, he seeks to remove Paul Ryan — and his ideas — from polite conversation.
Language such as this is not new, even if Pierce’s is saltier than usual. Descriptions of impending “dystopias” are trotted out every time that a long-term conservative plan is posited. Thanks to Joe Biden’s plagiarism, Neil Kinnock’s famous warning was played on both sides of the Atlantic:
If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain — when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance — when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty — when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay. I warn you that you will be cold — when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.
As a rule, delirious warnings such as these typically represent better literature than prognostication....
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