To the list of anti-conservatives who want to see Paul Ryan become House Speaker we can add Dave Weigel of the Washington Post. Weigel is the author of a Post article called “Ryan’s offer roils nest of disgruntled conservatives.” (Emphasis added) I don’t know whether Weigel is responsible for the title, but if Weigel didn’t write it, the headline-writer seems to share Weigel’s near-pathological contempt for conservatives.
The article is worse than the title. Weigel accuses those who oppose Ryan for Speaker of engaging in “Mau-Mauing.” Mau-Mauing means intimidating an official through confrontation or threats (the term stems from the intimidation tactics employed by Kenya’s anti-colonialist rebels). Ryan’s opponents haven’t confronted, threatened, or otherwise tried to intimidate him. They simply object to him becoming Speaker because they believe he isn’t conservative enough on the issues that matter to them.
Weigel attempts to overcome this reality by citing statements from some of Ryan’s critics — for example, Laura Ingraham — praising the Wisconsin Republican. But, as Weigel eventually admits, these statements are from 2012. That was before Ryan joined ultra-leftist Luis Gutierrez in pushing for amnesty. And it was before he cut a budget deal with Patty Murray that some conservatives didn’t like.
Clearly, there is no contradiction between praising Ryan in 2012 and opposing him for Speaker now based on events that followed 2012. Yet Weigel devotes four paragraphs of a 12 paragraph story to suggesting that such a contradiction exists. He even asserts that “Ryan critics have had to erase some of their own histories.”
Nonsense. Only a partisan hack would make that claim on based on this record.
Weigel’s crass, hatchet-man partisanship is an embarrassment to the Washington Post (which once had to fire him for over-the-top manifestations of the same tendency). And the Post isn’t easily embarrassed in this respect.
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