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Payl Ryan, words are not enough, now lying through pictures

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HamburgerBoy said:
From what Google is telling me, Obama actually did carry the pizza boxes to a campaign event, and that is exactly what the photos available purport. Assuming the article in the op is being truthful, Ryan's case is far more misleading, showing him not only performing an act of greater labor, but merely pretending to perform it as well.
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I'm sure if he got there on time he would have cleaned the dirty dishes. Who cares?
 
buckshot24 said:
I'm sure if he got there on time he would have cleaned the dirty dishes. Who cares?
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I'm sure he would have too, but since he didn't get there in time, he shouldn't have had the photo taken. The issue isn't his work ethic or willingness to do physical labor. It's honesty.
 
woolfe9999 said:
Uh no. The point of the Obama pizza photo, and I agree it was a photo op, was that his campaign paid for pizzas for the staff of a branch office. It was to show his beneficence toward his campaign workers, by footing the bill for the food. The "delivery" of it was just the symbolic act that represents the fact that his campaign paid for their food. My boss sometimes does this, pays for lunch for the staff, and he will physically take the food from whoever delivers it and bring it to us. He isn't trying to imply that he's doing physical labor. He's trying to take credit for paying for it.

It isn't really anything to get excited about. In fact, it's pretty nonsensical. It isn't, however, misleading. Unless you really think the whole point of it was to give the impression that he literally did the physical work of delivering the pizza the entire way. You'd have to be a fool to draw that conclusion. The Ryan photo, OTOH, does in fact imply that he did this physical work. I would assume he did if I didn't know otherwise.
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Fair enough. I stand corrected.
 
woolfe9999 said:
Uh no. The point of the Obama pizza photo, and I agree it was a photo op, was that his campaign paid for pizzas for the staff of a branch office. It was to show his beneficence toward his campaign workers, by footing the bill for the food. The "delivery" of it was just the symbolic act that represents the fact that his campaign paid for their food. My boss sometimes does this, pays for lunch for the staff, and he will physically take the food from whoever delivers it and bring it to us. He isn't trying to imply that he's doing physical labor. He's trying to take credit for paying for it.

It isn't really anything to get excited about. In fact, it's pretty nonsensical. It isn't, however, misleading. Unless you really think the whole point of it was to give the impression that he literally did the physical work of delivering the pizza the entire way. You'd have to be a fool to draw that conclusion. The Ryan photo, OTOH, does in fact imply that he did this physical work. I would assume he did if I didn't know otherwise.
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Nice job woolfe. Good to see some rational honesty, not to insinuate that you think like me, but to show my respect.

I fear that all these ads from the Right are designed to make it look like the 1% actually cares about the poor when in fact they are vultures and have ruined the economy. If the people wake up and see them washing clean dishes as a pretext for caring, their days will be numbered.

I could care less that Ryan washing clean dishes was phony if he were expressing something that is real. His legislative record should match that however, but it shows a cold son of a bitch. There was a time in this country, a good time at that, when the rich paid 90% of their income in taxes.
 
Ryan's washing (already) clean dishes is a typical government function as aptly described in my sig. 😉

(Of course it's a photo op. Who cares and what does it say - besides dishwashing being described as one of his earlier jobs? What does Dukakis riding in a tank say? or Biden wearing an astronaut suit?)

My guess is that the photographers who showed up at the event needed a picture. Since Ryan was late this was the best that could be done to accommodate them. The whole thing is stupid, really.

Fern
 
woolfe9999 said:
I'm sure he would have too, but since he didn't get there in time, he shouldn't have had the photo taken. The issue isn't his work ethic or willingness to do physical labor. It's honesty.
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:twisted::twisted:

The country is in the crapper and this is what is important?
 
woolfe9999 said:
I'm sure he would have too, but since he didn't get there in time, he shouldn't have had the photo taken. The issue isn't his work ethic or willingness to do physical labor. It's honesty.
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What's the dishonest part?

Is it Ryan posing as though he was washing dishes?

Or is it the captions accompanying the photo? If so, who wrote those? Was it Ryan? (Were the writers dishonest? If so, was it because they left out the word "clean" when writing that he "washed dishes"?)

As I said, it seems most likely that the photographers needed a pic and asked Ryan to pose. Now if Ryan runs around claiming to have helped out by washing dishes I'll admit it's dishonest.

Fern
 
buckshot24 said:
:twisted::twisted:

The country is in the crapper and this is what is important?
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Nope, it's not very important. It is, however, the topic of this thread. In this forum, we discuss lots of details about news and politics. Some are more important than others.
 
Fern said:
What's the dishonest part?

Is it Ryan posing as though he was washing dishes?

Or is it the captions accompanying the photo? If so, who wrote those? Was it Ryan? (Were the writers dishonest? If so, was it because they left out the word "clean" when writing that he "washed dishes"?)

As I said, it seems most likely that the photographers needed a pic and asked Ryan to pose. Now if Ryan runs around claiming to have helped out by washing dishes I'll admit it's dishonest.

Fern
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Regardless of whether the "liberal media" colluded in this, why did Ryan stand there washing clean dishes to begin with? I honestly can't think of a single reason unless he wanted to create a false impression. If you can think of another explanation, let me know.
 
Fern said:
What's the dishonest part?

Is it Ryan posing as though he was washing dishes?

Or is it the captions accompanying the photo? If so, who wrote those? Was it Ryan? (Were the writers dishonest? If so, was it because they left out the word "clean" when writing that he "washed dishes"?)

As I said, it seems most likely that the photographers needed a pic and asked Ryan to pose. Now if Ryan runs around claiming to have helped out by washing dishes I'll admit it's dishonest.
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Boy, talk about a spin job. I mean, both sides do this, but trying to pretend that Ryan did nothing dishonest here is pretty ridiculous.

The head of the soup kitchen was not impressed.
 
woolfe9999 said:
Regardless of whether the "liberal media" colluded in this, why did Ryan stand there washing clean dishes to begin with? I honestly can't think of a single reason unless he wanted to create a false impression. If you can think of another explanation, let me know.
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I've said it twice now - the photographers were sent there by their employers to get a picture of Ryan . Ryan was late, what to do? Since Ryan had a job washing dishes ask him to pose washing dishes. Win/win? Photographers get paid (or if salaried, accomplish the assignment), editor happy, (s)he gets the photo to accompany the "Ryan Visits" article, soup kitchen happy they get good press to help with charitable fundraising and a Ryan photo to hang on wall etc.

Fern
 
Fern said:
I've said it twice now - the photographers were sent there by their employers to get a picture of Ryan . Ryan was late, what to do? Since Ryan had a job washing dishes ask him to pose washing dishes. Win/win? Photographers get paid (or if salaried, accomplish the assignment), editor happy, (s)he gets the photo to accompany the "Ryan Visits" article, soup kitchen happy they get good press to help with charitable fundraising and a Ryan photo to hang on wall etc.

Fern
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We don't know that he was asked, but even if so, he should have declined. Complying with such a request would have been dishonest. I'm not saying other pols wouldn't have done this, on either side of the political fence. I'm sure some would while others wouldn't. It's still dishonest no matter how you look at it.
 
woolfe9999 said:
We don't know that he was asked, but even if so, he should have declined. Complying with such a request would have been dishonest. I'm not saying other pols wouldn't have done this, on either side of the political fence. I'm sure some would while others wouldn't. It's still dishonest no matter how you look at it.
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That, and the soup kitchen was not at all happy about it.
 
Fern said:
I've said it twice now - the photographers were sent there by their employers to get a picture of Ryan . Ryan was late, what to do? Since Ryan had a job washing dishes ask him to pose washing dishes. Win/win? Photographers get paid (or if salaried, accomplish the assignment), editor happy, (s)he gets the photo to accompany the "Ryan Visits" article, soup kitchen happy they get good press to help with charitable fundraising and a Ryan photo to hang on wall etc.

Fern
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Umm. How about get photos of Ryan mingling with the poor people at the soup kitchen? That might have also been nothing more than a photo op, but at least it wouldn't be intrinsically dishonest. That Ryan opted to stage a completely phony scene -- assuming the story is true -- only reinforces his fundamental lack of integrity.


Now, before the usual idiot sock puppets start yapping about my hypocrisy and "if the roles were reversed", let me offer a counterexample. As those who've been here a few years may remember, I was not a fan of GW Bush 😉 . Not in the least. Nonetheless, I tried to give him due credit when I thought he did something commendable, and for two or three years I had a (short) mental list of examples I'd cite when appropriate.

One of those was Bush's Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Iraq, during the first year of the invasion. While it was certainly a photo op, it was also a great thing to do for the troops. It had to be a huge boost for their morale to see their Commander in Chief right there with them. It was simply the right thing to do, and I commended Bush for it.

In my book, being a photo op and being a good thing are not mutually exclusive. Regardless of Bush's motives (and I personally think he was sincere), the result was still a positive for our troops. Moreover, what Bush did was real. He was really there. He was really with the troops. It was an honest scene. (Similarly, the Obama pizza photo, though in no way whatsoever in the same league as the Bush Thanksgiving visit, is still an honest portrait of something that really happened. No doubt it was also a boost for the morale of his campaign workers.)

Ryan's photo op is purportedly not a real scene. It was something phony, staged solely for the cameras. That's what makes it dishonest. That's what makes it noteworthy. Ryan could have easily made the photo op honest by choosing a different scene, but he didn't. Honesty simply doesn't seem to be one of his values.

Again, this all assumes the story in the OP is true. If not, I owe Ryan an apology.
 
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