Oh my God. This one is difficult to believe.
A disturbing portrait is rapidly emerging of Paul Ryan as a habitual liar.
We all saw the fact checkers pull their hair out after Ryan’s mendacious acceptance speech in Tampa. Now the multiplying lies also apply to his personal story, with the young candidate highlighting his virility by claiming he had run an impressive marathon time of less than three hours. But Runner’s World has the ugly and painful truth:
It turns out Paul Ryan has not run a marathon in less than three hours—or even less than four hours.
A spokesman confirmed late Friday that the Republican vice presidential candidate has run one marathon. That was the 1990 Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, where Ryan, then 20, is listed as having finished in 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds.
Ryan had said in a radio interview last week that his personal best was “Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.”
Ouch.
This inability to tell the truth is particualrly disturbing because Ryan is known as a numbers guy and has promised that he doesn’t want to eliminate Medicare. But can his word be trusted? As the fabrications and fibs mount, it is increasingly difficult to decipher fact from fiction when the Vice Presidential nominee speaks.
The VP’s veracity matters because anyone can look good — or even presidential — if they simply make stuff up. You know, maybe I should run for president in 2016 and present myself as a decorated a Iraq War veteran — even though I never fought in the desert. Or, perhaps, I’ll upgrade my bachelors degree into a PhD from Harvard. And why not increase my net worth a few million dollars to highlight my business acumen running companies I never actually owned.
No one knows who Mitt Romney is (including Mr. Romney himself). But we are beginning to wonder who the real Paul Ryan is as well? His actual life is increasingly not conforming to the storyline he is selling us.
This blatant marathon lie will be difficult to run away from — particularly when you jog as slow as we now know Ryan does.
In previous campaigns, this level of deceit would be grounds for disqualification. In the Republican Party of 2012, it is a qualification.
The worst part is…. Ryan ran on “not ducking the hard truth”. Right now, I think he could win a limbo contest for how well he ducks, very sad behavior but, of course, it will all be whitewashed and forgotten until the next time.
@Betty It would seem then, that Ryan and Romney are indeed perfect running mates. They’re both running on things that would make them unfit for the office they seek.
Seems like Romney’s constant and pathological lying is rubbing off on him
Politicians lie, this is surprise to you?
Meanwhile, the Democratic VP Joe Biden is a plagiarizer — which I suppose is not “Lying” — but “stealing” — perhaps there’s a difference I didn’t catch. I have no problem with picking on politicians, I just like picking on them all. Though I am against making one bunch seem like angels and the other the devil.
My gramma always said, “If he’ll lie about one thing, he’ll lie about ANYTHING!” Stay away from liars.
He said marathons for ONE granny marathon and gave an Olympic worthy time. It is impressive in it’s boldness and disrespect of Americans’ intelligence. A speaker at the convention mocked Biden for lying about how good a golfer he is, yet I since learned He has less than a seven handicap which is pretty impressive and not based on a one time outing. Considering Biden is almost 70 and Ryan’s marathon was at age 20 my bet I’d on Biden when they face off.
With today’s Republicans so entangled with religion, one of the key lessons they learn is that facts and evidence are irrelevant trivialities, and that only libruls and atheists concern themselves with such nonsense. Truth is created by fiat.
@Jim
Honey — no offense, but please. I grew up in the GOP and became a Democrat over time as the GOP’s positions changed and I moved left at the same time. This though – every 2 years they make themselves look more insane by comparison with only 2 years before. 2 years ago they ran no less than 3, possibly 4 senate candidates (I don’t remember) that were out of the water entirely – and all lost, including in at least one race where they were poised to defeat our incumbent and two at least where they were competitive if they had run other candidates, costing them what would have been control of the senate. This time they are running two men who are, seemingly, not only deliberately dishonest (Mr. Romney’s father released what? 10 years worth of tax returns? Senator McCain released 20. Mr. Romney releases 2??? and then one of them turns out to only be an estimate and he can only promise the real one in mid-October???? Really?????) but pathologically bound to lie.
All politicians lie? That’s mostly an excuse, and its not strictly true. Senator McCain managed to run without lying. “They all lie” is a rather sad attempt to excuse behavior by these two that is completely outside the pale.
Man up, be honest, I was honest when Monica s*ck*d President Clinton’s d*ck, and I said I didn’t care, but I was honest. If you want to say you don’t care about the truth, that’s a legitimate position. “Oh all of them lie” is just an excuse. They are lying like no candidates in my lifetime – so be man enough to admit it and to be honest about whether or not THEIR honesty matters to you at all.
Regards,
Reyn
Paul Ryan is giving us a window into the mind of a master of manipulation. He believes he can tell us anything (lie), then steer the listener toward his goal. See how first he was “fast”, “ran a sub 3 around 2:50 something” then his incorrect correction considering his real time of more than 4 hours by saying “I should have rounded to 4 instead of 3″…and he calls 2:50 rounding down to 3? Then On Toledo News Now video he knocks it out of the park with roughly: “I made up the 2:50 because I thought it was an ordinary time and I quit running in my mid twenties because of a bad back so I don’t really remember running times”. But you said on the first day you were “fast” and that you still can run 10 miles. It’s really a beautiful thing on the TNN video because you can see his faux surprise at the question. Wow he’s more amazing than a 12 year old who wants something. And it’s really quite frightening to think he could be in charge. No, no, no.
After all the lies he’s told to date why would anyone believe ANYTHING Ryan says?
It seems he has some kind of sick compulsion to lie, even when it serves no real purpose (even a dishonest purpose) and the lie can easily be found out.
No, he didn’t run a marathon in under three hours.
He lied about the GM plant in Janesvile, Wisconsin that was closed while George Bush was still President, in December 2008: but Ryan in his speech at the Republican Convention falsely blamed the closure on President Obama. Now Ryan is wriggling, trying to claim he didn’t say it (yet another lie).
There’s a reason why Paul Ryan is known as Lyin’ Ryan.
And no, I do NOT believe Lyin’ Ryan climbed “close to 40″ of the 54 “fourteener” peaks (14,000 ft. or so) in Colorado.
This man does not have the character to be a “heartbeat away” from becoming the President of the United States.