Let the Campaign Edit Wars Begin

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Megan Garber writes that in high school, Paul Ryan's classmates voted him as his class's 'biggest brown noser,' a juicy tidbit that is a source of delight for his political opponents but considered an irrelevant piece of youthful trivia to his supporters. 'But it's also a tension that will play out, repeatedly, in the most comprehensive narrative we have about Paul Ryan as a person and a politician and a policy-maker: his Wikipedia page,' writes Garber. Late Friday night, just as news of the Ryan choice leaked in the political press — the first substantial edit to that page removed the 'brown noser' mention which had been on the page since June 16. The Wikipedia deletion has given rise to a whole discussion of whether the mention is a partisan attack, whether 'brown noser' is a pejorative, and whether an old high school opinion survey is notable or relevant. As of this writing, 'brown noser' stands as does a maybe-mitigating piece of Ryan-as-high-schooler trivia: that he was also voted prom king. But that equilibrium could change, again, in an instant. 'Today is the glory day for the Paul Ryan Wikipedia page,' writes Garber. 'Yesterday, it saw just 10 [edits]. Today, however — early on a Saturday morning, East Coast time — it's already received hundreds of revisions. And the official news of the Ryan selection, of course, is just over an hour old.' Now Ryan's page is ready to host debates about biographical details and their epistemological relevance. 'Like so many before it, will be a place of debate and dissent and derision. But it will also be a place where people can come together to discuss information and policy and the intersection between the two — a town square for the digital age.'"

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[bedroll]

You're right, Obama's place of birth gives us an excellent opportunity to examine areas of Constitutional law that are commonly misunderstood. For example, where he was born means absolutely nothing because the citizenship of his mother is not in question. So, like George Romney - Mitt's father, who was born in Mexico - President Obama is a natural born citizen regardless of where he was born. The rest is racism and xenophobia.

As for the usefulness of Ryan's brown-noser status: Well it's not particularly important except that Americans like to know the personality of their prospective leaders. When Biden was picked it wasn't particularly important to note that he's a gaff machine, except in the personal context of how others will judge him. Either way, if it is verifiable and people are interested in the information as a part of his profile then it should meet the minimum standards for inclusion in Mr. Ryan's Wikipedia page.

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[sinij]

If you want to vote Republican ticket because of Ryan's Plan - make sure to read it. Ryan's Plan does include privatization of social security (no specifics on how, mandatory 401ks or 'contracted' to Goldman Sachs?) and turns medicare into voucher system (who will provide individual affordable healthcare coverage to sick and poor out of this population remains unclear). It also includes a lot of tax cuts to corporations and top 1%, Romney for example would pay less than 1% taxes under Ryan's plan. Last but not least Ryan's plan does not at all addresses defense spending - so no cuts there whatsoever. Fundamental problem with Ryan's Plan is that as far as fiscally conservative plans go - it isn't one. Even if you take his "closing tax loopholes" projections at a face value, any and all savings are channeled into tax cuts, not reduction of deficit. Last but not least - austerity measures that are bound to lower GDP (just look what austerity did in GB), debt/GDP will continue increasing under Ryan's Plan due to hit to GDP and no corresponding reduction in debt. In closing, also make sure to examine Ryan's voting record - every Bush tax cut, every expense, TARP, bailouts were voted YES. His rhetoric aside, fiscal conservative he is not.

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[Dyinobal]

You know the republicans keep spouting this 700 billion dollar cut but does anyone actually know what was cut and why? I did some research and found a pretty well written post on reddit about it, and it has sources (amazing). To me it doesn't seem that bad, it certainly seems better than medicare turning into a coupon program. 60% off your next tumor ha!

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/y4afe/a_breakdown_of_the_gops_latest_talking_point/ [reddit.com]

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

You must edit Wikipedia a lot, because you clearly missed and/or chose to ignore the facts regarding that accident. Mitt Romney was NOT [wikipedia.org] AT [thedailybeast.com] Fault. [washingtonpost.com] For those too lazy to read the linked articles, "A car heading north at about 60 mph missed a curve, barreled over a hill and veered into Romney's southbound lane. The car slammed into the front of the Citroen..."

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[spiffmastercow]

How is that a lie? His plan is to "privatize" Medicare for those under 55. That will, in effect, destroy the Medicare program. It might create a new program of some kind (though I'm guessing it's more of an every man for himself kind of deal), but it would most certainly destroy the existing one.

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[DesScorp]

Obama's place of birth is an actual Constitutional issue. Ryan's cliques in high school are not.

It is a Constitutional issue only because he is black. Nobody gave a shit that McCain was born on a military base in Panama or that Romney's father was born in Mexico when he tried to run for President. But Obama had to have been ineligible. It is a double-standard and it is racism. And it is also factually incorrect. So fuck you for bringing it up again.

American military bases are considered sovereign US territory for reasons of birth, just like the Navy's ships and American embassies. Anyone born there is considered to have legally been born on US soil. This isn't new or noteworthy, this is longstanding United States law. Also, a candidate's parent's birthplace has zero consequence in the Constitution. And you'd know that if you'd bothered to take 30 seconds to Google an answer instead of sounding like a fool.

Re:Top Ten Reason's for AmerCIAns to Vote

[skids]

#0: local elections.

But seriously, if the vote were as meaningless as you dropouts like to make it out, why is so much energy being spent to deprive people of it [post-gazette.com]?

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you took 35 seconds to parse the sentence, you'd realize that the GP was talking about George Romney running for President DESPITE being born in Mexico.

Yes, I know that "he" is a bit of an ambiguous pronoun, that's why I'm giving you an extra 5 seconds to look it over. Heck, you could have Google'd it yourself.

You really would sound less like a fool if you hadn't gotten so outraged over your own mistaken reading.

Re:Don't they lock those things?

[baegucb]

Well, I live about two miles from Paul Ryan. I've never voted for him or met him. The two major bills he's had passed involved repealing some minor tax on arrows, and renaming the local post office. He does have a lot of support from rich outsiders and local rednecks. Janesville back in 1992 had a KKK rally, and there are people who ride town with Confederate flags fling from their pickup. If you go to www.gazettextra.com there are the usual Tea Party shills, trolls, and astroturfing going on since the failed Walker recall started. Well, maybe since Obama got elected.
I consider Ryan as a nice guy personally based on his local rep, but a Palin clone who knows grammar.

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[rolfwind]

Of course, having passed more of his budgets through Congress than Obama has (who can't even get Congressional Democrats to vote for his ideas in bill form), Ryan has had to be the adult in the room and actually consider the effects of things on the deficit and future entitlements.

Sigh, no.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/06/mitt-romney/romney-says-obama-failed-pass-budget/ [politifact.com]
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/218931-house-clobbers-obama-budget-proposal-in-0-414-vote [thehill.com]

From both articles:

White House officials said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), the sponsor of the alternative, was using Obama's top-line spending and revenue numbers as a budget proposal, without any specifics. On the House floor, Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) agreed that Mulvaney's amendment was not, in fact, Obama's entire budget proposal.
"This is politics at its absolute worst: presenting something as the President's budget without the policy detail, without the explanation to the American people about what's in the President's budget," he said. "And as a result, he presents a very misleading version of what the President has asked us to do."

He’s right about the rejection. After Obama submitted his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal on Feb. 13, 2012, House Republicans put it up for a floor vote.

The result: 414-0 against.

The same thing happened a year earlier in the Senate. That vote: 97-0 against. Democrats didn’t support the plan because it has been supplanted by another deficit-reduction plan Obama had later outlined. Republican leaders demanded a vote on Obama’s budget to show that Democrats don’t support any detailed budget blueprint, according to The Hill.

Such votes are taken "just as a means of embarrassing the president and his party," said Patrick Louis Knudsen, a senior fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"Usually it’s brought up by the opposition party because they generally anticipate that a president’s budget won’t get very much support especially if it has controversial elements to it," he said.

Other experts agree. Said Steve Ellis, of Taxpayers for Common Sense: "That was pure political theater and was done to score rhetorical points."

Basically the votes were taken to score gotchas against the president. The one in the house by erasing all the details and just "basing" it on his big numbers. Of course no one would vote for that.

This VP pick shows that Romney is more interested in governing well and taking on serious issues than he is interested in short-term political gain from a couple of poll points in a swing state or two. Ryan was by far the best serious candidate for the VP job.

Paul Ryan:
Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009)
VVoted YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps. (Feb 2011) Voted YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008)
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps. (Feb 2011)
Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
Voted YES on extending unemployment benefits from 39 weeks to 59 weeks. (Oct 2008)
Voted NO on removing US armed forces from Afghanistan. (Mar 2011
)
Voted YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date. (Jun 2006)
http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Paul_Ryan.htm/ [ontheissues.org]

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[sqrt(2)]

This being a nerd oriented site I would think people would be smarter than this. You are spreading an untrue urban legend derived from a misunderstanding of how computer software works. Those layers were caused by Adobe's PDF software. An expert from Adobe confirmed as much.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/birthcertificate.asp [snopes.com]

Re:If Obama's BIRTH can be an issue

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

An American GI here, I have experienced the healthcare in Australia and England, all I can say is if the health care in those countries is dubious then the health care in the US is atrocious. Why is it most Americans that criticize the health care in Europe, Canada and Australia have never experienced it first hand and just take it for granted ours is better?