All Shadow, No Tree

"Reputation is the shadow.  Character is the tree." -- Abraham Lincoln

Since coming to Washington in 1998, House Speaker Paul Ryan has somehow gained a reputation among some as an intellectual conservative and a wonky policy genius.  But in reality, he's an ineffective hack with no significant accomplishments.  All he's done is push a bunch of goofy dogmatic ideas which have all gone nowhere -- from privatizing Social Security to replacing Medicare with private insurance vouchers to various cruel budget proposals to his latest debacle, the failed American Health Care Act, which died a well-deserved death yesterday.

Ryan's reputation as the philosopher prince, the GOP's big thinker, is horseshit.  He's a zombie-eyed granny killer, an ideologue and political extremist dedicated to serving the corporate class and the super-rich.

And his decision to advance those greedy goals by playing opportunistic kiss-ass with the horrific Donald Trump reveals his true character, or rather, his complete lack thereof.