The great Irish showdown

Analyses of the Paul Ryan selection are just burning up the media today--like it actually amounted to a hill of beans. But none is more hilarious (unintentionally, of course) than that of Irish Central, a news service out of Ireland. They’re gonna put the Onion out of business. They claim the Paul Ryan vs. Joe Biden campaign sets up an “Irish Catholic political showdown” between lace curtain Irish (Ryan) & shanty Irish (Biden). So political analysis now draws on vaudeville caricatures of Irish immigrants? And caricatures that went out along with vaudeville over 80 years ago. Well there is some sense in that. Now you know they’re heading in the wrong direction when they describe Ryan as charismatic. How does a schnook go from “biggest brown-noser” in school to charismatic? If you’re the kind of person who reads actuarial tables for fun, then maybe so, but those of us on Medicare don’t find him so. Irish Central calls this a “contest for the ages” & expect the VP debates to be “fascinating viewing”. Well it may beat taking Ambience. Irish Central proudly describe Alice Butler-Short, a 70-year-old Irish dance teacher from Tipperary who showed up at a Romney rally dressed head to toe in American flag-wear. “He’s absolutely phenomenal,” she said of Ryan. “Romney couldn’t have done better.” We’re hoping she’s a dramatic device in the story & not a real person. If she’s real, she’s getting shipped back to Tipperary & they’ll need to install racial profiling for Irish immigrants. They’re also playing up Ryan’s Catholicism but the Catholic church here is taking their distance from him, even denouncing him for his barbaric economic proposals--including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops & 80 Georgetown University professors & staff (no bastions of radical thought). That charisma isn't kicking in for them either. It needs to be said, Ireland: you have no right to bad-mouth Fox news with this kind of crap coming out of Ireland or you’ll get Ryan & Biden on the same boat as Alice.