Are you a journalist? Politico leads the crop of post-Ryan reporting failures

What's wrong with this picture? It is now time to play are you a journalist?, the special game to see whether you, as supposed expert in the field of political reporting, know a single thing about the substance of what you are actually being asked to report on'or whether your skill, conversely, is relegated entirely towards critiquing the fashions and speaking styles of the powerful figures you are tasked with following.

At this point, thanks to various individuals who have had the meager audacity to know what Paul Ryan was going on about at the time he was going on about it, we have a fairly good list of the biggest lies uttered in Paul Ryan's speech. Among the biggest is Ryan's attack on $700 billion in Medicare savings under Obama, an attack rather effectively neutered once anyone with half a brain in their heads remembers that Paul Ryan quite specifically has always supported and included those same cuts in his own budget proposals, and so Paul Ryan talking about "saving" Medicare from the very cuts he himself has been endorsing is a Damn Curious Thing at best. Bigger still is Ryan's casual assertion that Obama damaged the credit rating of the United States, which is also a Damn Curious Thing when you consider the rating agency involved specifically called out Paul Ryan's personal band of Congressional anarchists and privateers as the seminal reason for downgrading that credit. Then there is the GM plant that announced its closing during the summer of 2008, before Obama had even gained the small pleasure of trouncing the now perpetually crabby John McCain in state after state after state, much less before he was in any position to do anything about a plant closing in Paul Ryan's neck of the woods.

As a political pundit or outlet, this morning left you with two possible paths to take. One, you could point out that several of Paul Ryan's attacks were, shall we say, riding the bullshit train to bullshit town. Or two, you could not worry your dull little head with such things, and focus on what was really important: How dreamy was Mr. Ryan while delivering this little symphony of utter crap? How will his furrowed eyebrows and sharp-chinned rhetoric make America feel, when he is delivering these little tidbits of wisdom that were proved false by more knowledgeable voices within mere minutes of him belting them out?

(Continue reading below the fold.)