Translating Beltwayese

The Hill, in journalistic Beltwayese:

Republicans strategists are worried that Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) addition to the presidential ticket will cost their party House and Senate seats this fall.

Their concern: Democrats will successfully demonize Ryan’s budget plan, which contains controversial spending cuts and changes to Medicare [italics mine].

In English:

Republican strategists worry that Democrats will successfully expose Ryan's controversial budget plan, which contains demonic spending cuts and voucherizes Medicare into bootless oblivion.

Comments

[Turgidson]

I've also seen a bunch of articles that quote commentators or officials saying Democrats are going to demagogue the Medicare issue. And I remember Sullivan, among others, saying the same thing back around the time the House marched in unison off the Ryan cliff.

In order for it to be demagoguery, don't the assertions need to be false or wildly exaggerated in order to scare the voters unnecessarily? I don't see the Democrats saying anything about Ryan that he himself hasn't put onto paper and proudly stated for the record. He lies about whether his granny starving will actually starve granny, and he lies about why we need to starve granny to save civilization, but he proudly stands by his granny starving policy of killing guaranteed-benefit Medicare.

The truth about the zombie-eyed granny starver is plenty scary enough, thank you very much. The Democrats are not, and indeed need not, demagogue the issue.

[dr.e]

Does Ryan continue to run for his House seat? That should be telling.

[Robert Lipscomb]

Why are they worried about what Ryan did? Why are they not more justly worried by the fact that damned near everyone of them voted for the damned thing? they were already committed to running on their vote whether Ryan was on the ticket or not. The only reason no one suspected this is because Obama and his team are so disciplined that they have bitten their tongues for a year-and-a-half, so they could bring this up at the right time - during the convention.

To his credit, Romney is virtually the only GOP running for office who did not vote for this plan. As I recall, he put as much distance between himself and the budgets as he could without being shot by the GOP.

[japa21]

Robert, actually there is video of Romney supporting the plan during the primaries and saying he would sign it.

[Robert Lipscomb]

@japa21: Then it's officially a 100% Republican plan. :-)

[majii]

Tara Wall told Soledad O'Brien on CNN today that Romney and Ryan are solidly behind the Ryan Plan, so there's no question of where either stands on the Medicare issue.

[ThreeFingersInMyEye]

Translating Beltwayese

I think you should make this a regular part of your blog.

"expose Ryan's controversial budget plan, which contains demonic spending cuts and voucherizes Medicare into bootless oblivion."

Good stuff.