Can I give a Catch of the Day to a reaction to something that no one has said yet?
Oh, why not, since I like the piece a lot. It's Robert Farley, pre-debunking what he suspects is going to be an emerging fictional Paul Ryan on foreign policy. Basically, Farley's point is that the real Paul Ryan is on the ticket because he's willing to stick to the GOP line: support for neocon projects such as attacking Iran; a defense "policy" of giving the Pentagon everything it wants (plus what it doesn't want but key GOP ideologues and/or aligned contracters want); and on and on down the Bill Kristol agenda. As Farley notes, Ryan hasn't totally bought into all of that in the past, although for the most part he has; however, that's where he is now. And yet: "on the same terms that someone can pretend that Paul Ryan favors deficit reduction, someone will undoubtedly imagine a defense skeptical Paul Ryan. It just ain’t there."
OK, David Brooks hasn't written the column. Yet. So I'm not sure if I can really say "nice catch." But it sure sounds right to me.
Yeah I think you should be able to. Or you could start a new Johnny Carson/The Amazing Criswell type thing where you make predictions. It could be quite fun. For example "No matter what happens on election day by this time next year George Will will say Mitt Romney is not sufficiently "conservative."
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