the apotheosis of Beltway beat-sweetening in the early 1990's, when we were treated to a soprano chorus of hosannahs to the Staggering Genius Of Newt Gingrich. But, I fear, that may only have been the historical warm-up to the oratorio of humjobbery that is going to break loose now that the zombie eyed granny-starver, Paul Ryan, Pericles Of Janesville, has hit the big time.

(Also, too: Janesville is not a small town. Luck is a small town. Unity is a small town. Independence is a small town. Janesville is a small-to-middling size city of about 65,000 people, and once was a not-inconsiderable manufacturing center. Janesville is not a small town simply because it happens to be in Wisconsin.)

Exhibit A can be found on the front page of the New York Times today, in which four actual reporters conspire to tell the tale of how Ryan rose from adversity to a position in which he can focus his zombie eyes on your granny and arrange for her eventual starvation. (We don't find out until almost the end of the piece that Ryan's worth between two and seven million bucks, but that's apparently okay because he's not as rich as his running mate and, apparently, installed his own cabinets.) Gaze in awe at how completely salient biographical facts go spiraling down the ol' memory hole....

But the death of his father when Mr. Ryan was only 16 punctured his life of math tests and bike riding, and in that fissure, the seeds of his worldview were planted. "Paul went to work at McDonald's and began to pull his own weight, and becomes class president the same year," said his brother Tobin. "It is remarkable that he chose a path of individual responsibility and maturity rather than letting grief take a different course." He added: "Some of his political views did begin to coalesce around the time of my father's passing." His self-reliance followed him to summer camp, where as a counselor he canoed and hiked, and into young adulthood, where he took up deer hunting, a fact noted in his engagement notice in 2000 in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "Ryan is an avid hunter and fisherman," the paper reported, "who does his own skinning and butchering and makes his own Polish sausage and bratwurst." It followed him into college, where he immediately took a passionate interest in the canon of conservative economic theorists and writers — Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises — who inspired the up-and-coming generation of libertarian-minded activists and lawmakers.

How can you possibly write that passage and dismiss idly as a "contradiction" the ironic — not to mention hilariously hypocritical — fact that, after his father passed, and while working the fry station and toting canoes at a YMCA summer camp, Ryan was also the beneficiary of Social Security survivor's benefits? These did precisely what they were designed to do, which was to help young Paul Ryan get the education that would help him become the adult Paul Ryan who's been on one government payroll or another since he left college, and who goes around telling half-dim audiences that people on government assistance are mired in a "culture of dependency."

But don't you know he grooves to Rage Against The Machine? It is not possible for the Times to disgrace itself further.

Fk Ludwig von Mises. If it weren't for FDR and LBJ, and for the munificence of the American taxpayer, Paul Ryan would still be in Janesville, looking for a job.

MORE ON THE TIMES STORY: The Ryan Family's (Rich) History of Fakery and the Big (as in Worldwide) Catholic Confusion >>

CONSTANT UPDATES: Follow the Paul Ryan VP Reaction on The Politics Blog >>

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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