Why Did Paul Ryan’s Pants Not Catch Actual Fire Last Night?

Commentary — Did you tune in last night to see Paul Ryan’s speech on Day Two of the Republican National Convention? Ryan’s got a certain charisma, indeed, definitely more than his running mate Mitt. But many of us woke to a firestorm of controversy from the left-leaning media (and Andrew Sullivan) addressing some glaring falsehoods in the speech that rocked the convention floor, and sadly, much of the US last night.

Paul Ryan has a whole heap of confirmation bias to fall back on when it comes to support to oust Obama in the coming election, but the media would be remiss in its duty not to point out the very many falsehoods that permeated Ryan’s speech like too much salt in the mashed potatoes.

Politicians are often called liars, but Paul Ryan’s set of accusations made during the speech took election season lying to a whole new level, set on selling a narrative of the Obama administration to voters that was heavy on grandiose description and light on factual backup.

Shortly after Ryan claimed that Obama blatantly lied about his ability to save a plant in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski was at the ready to remind voters that the plant shuttered before Obama even got the keys to the White House:

Paul Ryan just hit Obama for a GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008.

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 30, 2012

Paul Ryan used government money to try to save GM plant he blamed Obama for closing that closed in 2008 under Bush. thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/…

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 30, 2012

But it wasn’t just a shifty timeline that set fact-checkers on edge after Ryan’s speech. Truly baffling was the admitted Ayn Rand adherent’s strange repetition of an oft-cited social contract to protect the poor and needy when Ryan said:

“The greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.”

In a voucher system, of course. A more extensive catalog of the falsehoods in Ryan’s speech is available over on Salon, in New York Magazine, and in the liveblog cited above by Andrew Sullivan. But one can’t help but recall Stephen Colbert’s assertion as he roasted President Bush so many years ago: “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Did you find Paul Ryan’s speech to be a bit disingenuous, or was it par for the course in a heated election?