(Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Remember how hard Rep. Paul Ryan tried to spin his disastrous budget with its scheme to end Medicare? Back during the spring recess, he insisted that the constituents booing him at his town meetingshis Medicare plan, saying the "crowds are overwhelmingly supportive."

When that didn't really work, he shifted his spin saying that, really, the plan wasn't unpopular, it was just misunderstood. People would love it, really, once the Republicans figured out a way to talk about it that didn't terrify people.

Meanwhile, there were the polls. Like this PPP poll done in June in North Carolina, finding that voters were opposed to the plan by an almost 2:1 margin. In North Carolina. There are any number of polls demonstrating just how unpopular it is.

Undaunted, Ryan has kept up his happy talk, and finally found a buyer. Check out the headline from CNN's Gloria Borger and Kevin Bohn: "Paul Ryan: Popular by pushing the unpopular." That's only slightly more embarrassing than their lede.

Washington (CNN) -- To hear Paul Ryan explain it, there's just one way to cope with becoming the Democrats' favorite man to hate: "I gave fear up for Lent this year," Ryan told CNN during an extensive interview. And he's not kidding.

The fluff just gets fluffier from there, culminating in the ultimate.

Ryan was pushed again this summer to run for the Republican presidential nomination by assorted GOP luminaries. His answer: No, not yet. "I think there are other good people who can do this job," he told CNN. "But there are not other good people who can raise my kids."

Needless to say, there's absolutely no analysis on what Ryan's budget plan would actually do to America, the massive giveaways to the wealthiest people in America, the tax increases on the middle-class, and forcing seniors into the morass of private insurance.

But hey, he's the latest GOP savior, so unpopular he's actually popular, a latter day John Galt himself. At least, that's what Ryan told Borger and Bohn. It's his story, and they're sticking with it.