Just saw this article on Politico by Roger Simon. Not sure if it's snark or full of half truths - never know with Simon - but it seems Boy Wonder has decided to go rogue and started calling Romney "the Stench" to distance himself from the Romney team with over five weeks to go.

Here are some of my favorite passages from the column:



Paul Ryan has gone rogue. He is unleashed, unchained, off the hook.

“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, told The New York Times on Sunday.

Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”

PowerPoint is usually restricted to conference rooms where the doors are locked from the outside. It is, therefore, considered unsuited for large rallies, where people have a means of escape and where the purpose is to energize rather than daze. Ryan’s PowerPoint slides were officially labeled: “Our Unsustainable Debt (U.S. Debt Held by Public as a Share of Economy),” “Your Share of the Debt,” “Who Funds Our Reckless Spending?” and “How the Government Spends Your Money.” The Romney campaign was furious. But Ryan reportedly said, “Let Ryan be Ryan and let the Stench be the Stench.”

Simon goes on to talk about Ryan's use of a PowerPoint presentation which put the audience to sleep and enraged Team Romney.The article may be complete snark and too good to be true but it's actually being talked about on the interweb and the red staters/freepers in the comments section are already calling Roger Simon a Chicago leftist so there may be some truth to it.

At the very least it's either catty gossip or journalistic humor for us to enjoy.

Here's a link to the full article called "Paul Ryan vs the Stench" on the Politico website:

http://www.politico.com/...

Update: On the question of whether this is snark - I will quote docterry from the comments below who is spot on:

You can't tell snark from news any more



I read the column in Politico so that does exist. It refers to Ryan giving a Powerpoint presentation out on the stump, so at least that much of the Politico column is true. But Ryan walking around referring to Romney as 'the Stench'? And Romney's Boston brain trust referring to Ryan as 'Gilligan'? I find it hard to believe, but who knows? As has been said before, the entire Romney campaign has made The Onion irrelevant.