Fox News correspondent Sally Kohn on Paul Ryan's vice-presidential nomination acceptance speech.
Alan: The following article makes a 63% approval rating look like resounding support.
In fact, more than a third of GOP voters disapprove Paul Ryan, arguably the sanest, most centrist member of The Republican Party.
Although the metaphor is overworked, Republican politicians are eager to prolong their circular firing squad, each of them convinced that his particular brand of ideological purity will usher in a New Heaven and a New Earth.
In fact, nothing could be more "same old, same old."
Ever since the first Pharisees -- through their contemporary American incarnation -- "Too Pure Principles" have done immeasurable harm and minuscule good.
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On "Too Pure Principles" And The Collapse Of Conservatism
Devout Catholic, Blaise Pascal
"Is Perfectionism A Curse? Paul Ryan Tells The Truth"
http://paxonbothhouses.
http://paxonbothhouses.
Poll: 63% of GOP Voters Comfortable with Ryan for Speaker Job
More than six in ten Republican primary voters say they'd be comfortable with Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as the next Speaker of the House, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.
Sixty-three percent said they would feel "comfortable and positive" about Ryan taking over the top job, while 28 percent say they would feel "skeptical and uncertain" if the former GOP vice presidential nominee moved into the position held by retiring Rep. John Boehner.
Ryan has not said whether or not he will seek the speakership, despite urging from Republican colleagues across the political spectrum. While Ryan is viewed as the Republican most likely to be able to unify the fractured Republican conference, some on the far right have voiced concerns that he will not work closely enough with the party's most strident conservative members.
In the new poll, conservative primary voters appeared to be fairly at ease with the idea of Ryan holding the gavel. Sixty-eight percent of Tea Party backers and 67 percent of "very conservative" Republicans said they are comfortable with Ryan taking over the leadership slot. But a smaller share of Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal - 54 percent - say they feel positive about Ryan's possible move.
Republican primary voters also told pollsters that they would prefer a House Speaker who values principles over compromise.
Fifty-six percent said they want a leader who will "stand up for principles even if this means that less gets done," while 40 percent said that they would prefer a House Speaker who will "seek compromise and work to get more done."
Boehner abruptly announced his retirement last month amid a brewing battle among Republicans over whether the government should be shut down unless federal funding for Planned Parenthood is eliminated. His second in command, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, also shocked official Washington by passing up the gavel, leaving Ryan, who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, as a possible consensus pick.
GOP voters had little love lost for Boehner and his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, before Boehner's retirement announcement. In a NBC News/WSJ poll released last month, 72 percent of GOP voters said they were dissatisfied with the leadership of Boehner and McConnell, and 36 percent said they wanted to see both men ousted from their jobs.
The NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll was conducted October 15-18. The margin of error for 400 Republican primary voters is 4.9 percent.
No comments:
Post a Comment