Curb Your Enthusiasm

Our guest columnist is Matthew Yglesias, exhibiting the first documented case of Paul Ryan Derangement Syndrome.

Let me apologize. I originally had a too-credulous item here linking to a piece at The Richmonder alleging that Paul Ryan has sold bank shares after a closed door meeting with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke on the financial crisis in 2008. As Eric Platt explains he certainly seems to have sold the shares on the same day as the meeting, but the meeting happened in the evening by which time the markets would have been closed. One can perhaps construct a scenario by which the Richmonder’s theory of the case holds up, but they don’t have the goods and I shouldn’t have passed their analysis on with no qualification and so little scrutiny of my own.

As Brad DeLong writes, for one reason or another Ryan did quite a lot of trading of individual bank stocks in 2008 so the timing of this particularly transaction isn’t particularly noteworthy when put in that context. For posterity’s sake the original item is below now in strikethrough.

Paul Ryan’s Bank Stock Trading [Slate]

Paul Ryan Insider Trading Rumor Quickly Debunked [TPM]

4 Comments

@tomfoolery: It’s the classic moment from All The President’s Men: Woodward & Bernstein got ahead of the story, printing something that wasn’t sufficiently sourced, and provided the Nixon Administration an opportunity to go High Dudgeon on them.

Paul Ryan is such an easy target, I worry about the Left buying its own caricature of him — something teabaggers do with Obama, to great amusement.

I’m a true believer in caricature, but the trick is to not lose sight of the underlying reality. Which might be my issue with Zombie-Eyed Granny Snatcher — brilliant as a one-off, but it wears thin with repeated use.

@nojo: That’s “starver,” not “snatcher.”

ZEGS fits Ryan to a T. I’m going to continue egging it on because I would like Paul Ryan to regret going into politics even half as much as I regret being born.

@karen marie still has her eyes tight shut: And that’s how the Greek Gods evolved.

You’re right, it’s Starver. But I keep thinking Snatcher, because it’s in tune with the Zombie part.

Related: Eccentric versions of popular song lyrics.

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