Will Paul Ryan have any integrity left when Mitt Romney is done with him?

By Richard K. Barry

Last week Sam Stein had a piece at Huffington Post in which he discussed the fact that GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan has enthusiastically accepted the Romney team's approach of lying about everything, hoping, apparently, to court the support of what are euphemistically called "low-information voters."

In this case, Ryan blasted President Obama for "failing to rescue a General Motors factory in his Wisconsin congressional district, calling it 'one more broken promise' on the Democratic administration's record."

According to Stein, Ryan said this during a campaign stop:

I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he'll keep that plant open. One of the reasons that plant got shut down was $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president's terrible energy policies are costing us jobs.

Stein added that this claim has been seriously ridiculed for the fact that the Janesville, Wisconsin plant actually closed during the last year of George W. Bush's presidency. Stein then goes on to show that it was obvious Ryan knew this but made the charge anyway.

You can and should follow Stein's well-argued case, but the bottom line is that if something as important as an auto manufacturing plant is threatening to close in anyone's congressional district, that Rep. would know everything about the plans, when it was slated to close, and do anything possible to stop the closure, as Ryan did.

Many have commented that the Romney campaign has hit upon a fairly novel campaign strategy, which is to lie consistently knowing that much of the mainstream press will simply treat clear untruths as a different perspective rather than bothering to challenge the lies. Similarly, a lot of well-meaning voters have neither the time nor inclination to fully understand when lies are being told. Funny thing is that it might just work.

Given the frequency of Romney's lies, it would seem to be a considered strategy rather than the normal kind of political truth-bending. And given Ryan's willingness to apply the strategy when he could be so easily caught out, it must mean he got the briefing and accepts this way of campaigning.

In a way, I suspect even those who support Romney know he wants the presidency so badly he will reverse any position previously held. They know his integrity is in doubt. As for Ryan, I'm sure some people view him as a straight-talking mid-western dude who tells it like it is - that he's a truth teller. Let's see how that plays itself out as Ryan spends more time with Romney.

I just finished reading Larry McMurtry's wonderful Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove. In it, one of the characters places a bit of Latin on a sign heading into a ranch. It reads: "Uva Uvam Videndo Varia Fit," which seems to have something to do with grapes. I read no Latin but one commentator believes the figurative translation is "We are changed by the lives around us."

It's going to be interesting to see if Paul Ryan, the supposedly straight-talking mid-western dude, has any integrity left by the time he spends three months with Mitt Romney, a man who never met a useful lie he didn't like.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)