Paul Ryan exaggerates his marathon-running prowess

Los Angeles Times ^ | 09/01/2012 | James Rainey

[HarleyD]

Voters will have to decide how much to ding Republican vice presidential nominee Paul D. Ryan for slamming President Obama on a debt reduction commission, when Ryan made the same judgment himself with a vote in Congress.

That kind of inconsistency is easy to prove, if a bit arcane for some Americans. But there is nothing mysterious to the athletically-inclined about marathon times, so it will be interesting to see how the public reacts to Ryan carving a huge hunk out of his best time for the 26.2-mile race.

[Scotswife]

And then there’s that whole war hero story - and throwing (or not throwing?) of his medals?

And having things seared, SEARED into his memory!

[agere_contra]

And this was a misrememberance.

[SamAdams76]

This disheartens and demoralizes me. I had such high hopes for the Romney/Ryan ticket too. I thought we would finally be able to get an administration in Washington that would address the severe financial problems facing our nation and put us on the right track.

However, I cannot condone Paul Ryan falsifying his marathon-running time. Therefore I am calling upon Ryan, for the good of the country, to step down from the ticket and also resign his congressional seat. I urge Mitt Romney to select somebody else, preferably somebody who has never run a marathon or claimed to run one. I'm thinking Chris Christie. I think Romney is on safe ground with Christie because it is evident to all that Christie is not capable of even running a marathon, so there is no chance of Christie ever embarrassing the ticket by claiming to run a marathon in a given amount of time.

If Romney does not drop Ryan from the ticket by 9AM on Tuesday, then I will yank all Republican political yard signs out of my front lawn and will report to my local Democratic headquarters for further instruction. I will also take my truck to the local beach and fill it up with sand so that I can construct a sand sculpture of Barack Obama in my front yard. Now Obama might be a foreign-born Marxist bent on the destruction of the United States of America, but to my knowledge, he has never lied about his finishing time in a marathon so unless Romney drops the marathon-fudging Paul Ryan, I'm afraid I'm going to have to join the ABR crowd and switch my vote over to Obama.

It sucks and boy, am I depressed about having to display something like the below in my front yard. I hope it rains like hell around here.

[Scotswife]

Love it!

I may just have to copy and paste that somewhere.

But where.....

[hal ogen]

nobama is a kenyan. What are his marathon times?

[SamAdams76]

I'm glad that you see I was just being facetious. I was concerned after hitting the POST button that some might think I was being serious!

Seriously, if all the Obama camp can come up with is that Ryan fudged a marathon-running time and that 30 years ago, Romney once tied his dog cage to the top of his car, then this ticket is in pretty good shape!

[Dahoser]

But no concern about seeing Obama’s real birth certificate.

Nor any concern about Biden outrageously lying about the circumstances of the death of his first wife and his daughter, claiming that the truck driver who hit their vehicle "drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch." The allegation is untrue, but hasn't stopped Biden from repeating it and the media ignoring it. But let's have an investigation into Marathongate.

[VanDeKoik]

Didn’t Obama say that his grandfather help liberate a Nazi concentration camp that was actually liberated by the Soviet army too?

[The Great RJ]

First, who gives a rat’s posterior about Ryan’s times for running a marathon? Second, does Obama honestly give his true golf scores let alone come clean on where he was born?

[Theoria]

A person who takes the time to train and put in the effort does not forget ones marathon PR. Ryan is a stud, no need for him to inflate his time. Perhaps he was intimated by Mrs. Palin's time of 3:59.

[randita]

That sculpture is laughable. He looks like Howdy Doody. But that’s very fitting for the Rat convention.

[sauropod]

If that is really the case, then i am fine with it.

[FrankR]

Talk about grasping at straws...the Times must be as scared as the rest of liberal land.

How many marathons has either Biden or Obama run?

[servantboy777]

The economy is in the tank, folks are struggling, national debt out of control, criminal illegals flooding our country, our prisons....and this is what makes a headline?

I’m convinced, dumb people should not be allowed to vote.

[Wyatt's Torch]

You get to take an hour off your time if you run in one of Obama’s 57 states...

[Scotswife]

Heck....the DNC will be telling a bold lie everytime they say “Panther Stadium” this week. LOL!

[bgill]

Ryan can’t remember a running time some 20 years ago is a big deal to some.

Hussein can’t remember if the hospital outside his apartment window and that he walked past every day to school was the one he was born at or it was some other hospital in Honolulu, Asia (the 57th state) is no big deal to SCOTUS, Congress or to half the country.

[going hot]

The LATrine lamenting, how precious.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

I am wondering if he did a half marathon.

[Lancey Howard]

A lie is a lie, not an "exaggeration."

That's a good point.