Two weeks ago, I slammed William Saletan for his love letter to Paul Ryan in which he all but offered to help run the Ryan for President ’16 campaign if Pres. Obama got re-elected this fall.
There’s no evidence Saletan’s aware of my criticism (nor should there be), but to his credit, there’s now plenty of evidence—provided by Saletan himself—that he read and digested lots of the reaction (positive and negative) to his column. Perhaps more importantly, Saletan has paid attention to what Ryan himself has said and done in the intervening two weeks—abandon any serious talk of fiscal restraint and demagogue on Medicare like…well, like the entire Republican Party has for the past 2 1/2 years.
Apparently that’s the deal breaker for Saletan: “But if you won’t stand by your principles when it counts, Paul–if you’re just going to demagogue Medicare like an old-style liberal–then you’re useless to this country. I want my love letter back.”*
Good for Saletan. Here’s hoping he’s just one of many centrist-leaning pundits and editors who comes to their senses in the next few weeks about what the Romney-Ryan ticket really stands for.
*And that was yesterday morning—before Ryan’s utterly mendacious, misleading and fact-free, stemwinder at last night’s GOP convention.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
