From Jezebel: "10 Reasons You Should Have Watched the Vice Presidential Debate Last Night"

[$tevie]

Pundits are calling it "lively," but what last night's Vice Presidential debate really was — was hilarious. It had everything a political hatewatcher could want from a televised argument between two dudes — Joe Biden's incurable case of the giggleshouts, moderator Martha Raddatz's oh no she DIDN'T scimitar questions, Paul Ryan stumbling through answers about foreign policy like a frustrated Tracy Flick realizing he didn't study quite hard enough. It had yelling. It had nervous water sipping. It had malarkey

http://jezebel.com/5951246/10-reasons-yo...last-night

4. The part when Joe Biden made Paul Ryan admit that he believes stimulus money creates jobs.

From the debate transcript:

BIDEN: And I love my friend here. I — I'm not allowed to show letters but go on our website, he sent me two letters saying, "By the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin?" We sent millions of dollars. You know...
RADDATZ: You did ask for stimulus money, correct?
BIDEN: Sure he did. By the way...
RYAN: On two occasions we — we — we advocated for constituents who were applying for grants. That's what we do. We do that for all constituents who are...
BIDEN: I love that. I love that. This was such a bad program and he writes me a letter saying — writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, "The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs." His words. And now he's sitting here looking at me.

Ryan asking for stimulus money because it creates jobs is the fiscal conservative equivalent of a virulently anti-gay pastor hiring a gay manservant to accompany him on a trip to the tropics. It's a pro-life family values Congressman pressuring his mistress to have an abortion. It's hypocrisy at its finest. It's kind of a thing of horrible beauty.

Joe Biden called Paul Ryan "my friend" 14 times last night. I think that they're probably frenemies now.

[$tevie]

6. Paul Ryan's adorable story of how his daughter's ultrasound looked like a little bean was totally stolen from Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

Paul Ryan loves 90's cool guy music like Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana, even though he's the sort of whining sell-out suck-up douchebag that would make Kurt Cobain want to throw himself down some stairs. So it's oddly fitting that Paul Ryan's tale of his pro-life views — he and his wife went in for an ultrasound and his daughter, at only 7 weeks' gestation, looked like an adorable little bean and they still call her Bean to this very day D'awwwwww — is almost an exact copy of the story that Kurt Cobain used to tell about seeing his daughter Francis' ultrasound.

[decay]

Ryan's wife went full term in only 5 months, too.

[beagledave]

$tevie wrote:
6. Paul Ryan's adorable story of how his daughter's ultrasound looked like a little bean was totally stolen from Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

Paul Ryan loves 90's cool guy music like Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana, even though he's the sort of whining sell-out suck-up douchebag that would make Kurt Cobain want to throw himself down some stairs. So it's oddly fitting that Paul Ryan's tale of his pro-life views — he and his wife went in for an ultrasound and his daughter, at only 7 weeks' gestation, looked like an adorable little bean and they still call her Bean to this very day D'awwwwww — is almost an exact copy of the story that Kurt Cobain used to tell about seeing his daughter Francis' ultrasound.

I don't get how this proves that Ryan "stole" the nickname/anecdote from Cobain and Love. I'm going to guess that Cobain and Love were not the first people to nickname their kid Bean" based on what they saw in an ultrasound.

That sort of thing seems pretty common.

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[Black]

$tevie wrote:
6. Paul Ryan's adorable story of how his daughter's ultrasound looked like a little bean was totally stolen from Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

Paul Ryan loves 90's cool guy music like Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana, even though he's the sort of whining sell-out suck-up douchebag that would make Kurt Cobain want to throw himself down some stairs. So it's oddly fitting that Paul Ryan's tale of his pro-life views — he and his wife went in for an ultrasound and his daughter, at only 7 weeks' gestation, looked like an adorable little bean and they still call her Bean to this very day D'awwwwww — is almost an exact copy of the story that Kurt Cobain used to tell about seeing his daughter Francis' ultrasound.

That story was naueseating. Maybe more the delivery than the content. Or both,

[mick e]

From anyone else the story is touching and cute. From Ryan, it just sounds really suspicious.

[Manlove]

What that story was, was utterly irrelevant and rather pathetic. Was he trying to endear me to him by telling it? You can imagine the speech writers trying to come up with something warm and fuzzy to show him as human- well, it didn't work. He looks and is soulless.

[August West]

Article wrote:
Nearly every claim Ryan made with that crinkled Sincerity Forehead and Serious Eyebrows of his was met with the sound of Diamond Joe cracking up. Can you believe this guy? Get a loada this crap!

Heh.

[$tevie]

Ryan is like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Everything he says needs to be fact checked, even his anecdotes.

Also, beagledave, you may not be familiar with Jezebel but they aren't a news site. They are a very opinionated and hilarious group of women.

[Todd's keyboard]

Manlove wrote:

Was he trying to endear me to him by telling it?

Not trying to be snarky, is that what you meant to write?

I would have phrased the idea, "Was he trying to endear himself to me?"

IIRC, you are from the UK. Is this another example of two nations divided by a common language? (Hmm, this may be the final key that lets me understand "Downton Abbey" without having to replay key scenes.)

Todd's syntactically confused boardkey