Why Paul Ryan, defender of the indefensible, should just stop talking - By Jennifer Rubin
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), among all elected Republicans, may be faring the worst during the Trump era. By defending, rationalizing, excusing and ignoring President Trump’s egregious behavior and attack on democratic norms, Ryan has gone from respected wonk to disgraced toady. At a CNN town hall on Monday night, he demonstrated why he would do better to say as little as possible.
Asked a reasonable question about a timeline for Afghanistan, he answered with double talk. “And that is why I think it’s important that we don’t telegraph — I think that was a strategic mistake the last president made, that we shouldn’t telegraph our timetable when we’re leaving so that we can actually make it conditions-based, which is what is the purpose of being there. … So I think it’s very important that we not do that. But at the same time, like the president said, no blank check. You’ve got to make sure that we prosecute this to the end so that we can bring reconciliation.” So there is no timeline, but no blank check and no idea when this will end — not to mention no idea what “reconciliation” is or what happens if this is impossible. One wonders why Ryan even agreed to do this town hall, since he has literally nothing to offer good-faith questioners.
Things went from bad to worse when Charlottesville came up. Asked to comment on Trump’s remarks, he blathered on for some time decrying racism, white nationalism and hate but never condemning the president’s comments. The best he could come up with was to praise Trump’s scripted remarks on Monday, Aug. 14, and then say this about his off-the-cuff comments: “I think he made comments that were much more morally ambiguous, much more confusing. And I do think he could have done better. I think he needed to do better.” He went on to say, “So I do believe that he messed up in his comments on Tuesday, when it — it — it sounded like a moral equivocation, or at the very least moral ambiguity, when we need extreme moral clarity.” When Ryan says Trump “messed up,” he suggests falsely that this was a political faux pas, a poorly phrased comment. No, Mr. Speaker, what he said was morally abhorrent, a none-too-subtle wink to white nationalists. Trump says these things when freed from a script because that is what he really thinks. Ryan seems incapable of both disagreeing with Trump and holding him to account.
Rabbi Dena Feingold, of a synagogue in Kenosha, Wis., asked Ryan whether he would support censure: “I’d like to ask you what concrete steps that you will take to hold the president accountable when his words and executive actions either implicitly or explicitly condone, if not champion, racism and xenophobia. For example, will you support the resolution for censure?” Ryan weakly protested that it would turn into a “partisan hackfest.” Well, that would be because Republicans insist on reflexively defending the indefensible. There would be no partisanship if Ryan would stop acting like a partisan hack.
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