William Saletan has won the ruthless competition to be the first Very Serious Centrist Ryan praiser specifically criticized by Paul Krugman. Krugman's main point is that a well made campaign narrative absolutely requires that there be demagogues and serious policy analysts on both sides. Ryan has a larger number to lie ratio than any other top Republican (all due to the numerator). So he is cast in the role. It's like trying to find someone to play Tarzan at an all girl school.
But I have a creeping suspicion that Saletan's claim is not as diametrically opposite from the truth as it seems. I haven't checked (and will *not* read Saletan to for the sake of the journalistic non standards of a blog which almost no one reads) but I suspect that what Saletan wrote might be technically true. If he said that Ryan's "plan" isn't quite as pure hot air as that of any other *republican* he might be right for all I know (again no checking).
Fortunately, I don't have to read Saletan to find an example as even the liberal Boston Globe does it. Outsourced to Charlie Pierce
The presence on the national ticket of Ryan, whose budget proposal goes farther than that of any other Republican in sketching out the tradeoffs necessary to make the sharp spending reductions many in the party seek
More frank about tradeoffs than any other Republican. Smarter than any hammer. Better looking than any warthog.
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