Paul Ryan Awards Paul Ryan Lifetime Achievement Award For Excellence In Being Paul Ryan

Reflections on a life unlived.

How is Paul Ryan feeling as he approaches his last few months as speaker of the House, before he retires in shame to spend more time with his family and hopefully prevent his car from getting eaten by a bunch more woodchucks? SUPER, THANKS FOR ASKING!

As Ryan reflects on being seriously the least effective speaker of all time, accomplishing approximately "jackshit" number of things in an era during which his party controls the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court, Ryan talked to the  New York Times  about what he would have done differently, given that hindsight is 20/20 and we can all learn from our mistakes and maybe he shouldn't have skipped leg day all those times ...

"I'm very comfortable with the decisions I've made," he told me. "I would make them again, do it again the same way."

Oh.

Really? All of 'em? OK, bro.

What Ryan really wants us to understand is that we shouldn't be focusing on his lack of accomplishments, but rather his abundance of UN-complishments, by which he means the terrible stuff that would have happened if he hadn't ridden in on his gigantic steed and stopped them:

"I can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and say I avoided that tragedy, I avoided that tragedy, I avoided that tragedy," Ryan tells me.

For instance?

"No, I don't want to do that," Ryan replied. "That's more than I usually say."

Also, when Paul Ryan looks at himself in the mirror, after his 30 minutes of examining his sexxx muscles for evidence of aggravated hotness after his morning yoga-and-spin class, he knows he can say he advanced that goal and advanced that goal, and so on and so forth. So what if he didn't actually score any goals? He broke a sweat, that's all he knows. (FACT CHECK: The New York Times says Ryan does yoga 'n' spin every morning. It does not say whether or not he examines his sexxx muscles the way Wonkette just described. We are just making educated guesses.)

And don't say Ryan should have pushed harder against Trump:

What if he were to pick a fight with Trump every time he said something that offended? "I think some people would like me to start a civil war in our party and achieve nothing."

Yeah, why would he do that when he can do nothing and also achieve nothing? Answer him that one!

Besides, Ryan says half the time when Trump is tweeting out misspelled racisms, he is just being a troll. Who is he trolling? "You guys." The libs. Never-Trumpers. America. Paul Ryan.

I asked Ryan if he was one of the "you guys."

"Sometimes," he said, "yeah."

We learn in this profile that Trump used to call Paul Ryan a "boy scout" and Paul Ryan was like OMG I AM THE GOODEST BOY SCOUT LET ME GO CHANGE INTO MY WEBELO SHORTS. But then when Paul Ryan actually accomplished a damn thing, Trump said OK he will stop calling Paul Ryan a "boy scout" and Paul Ryan was like wait, he was making fun of me?

"I guess he meant it as an insult all along," the speaker said. "I didn't realize." Ryan shrugged.

EEYORE FACE. (See above.)

But perhaps the most disturbing part of the profile comes when the Times reporter accompanies Paul Ryan to a Q & A event, where Ryan gets questions about the Robert Mueller investigation. Would Ryan be cool with it if Trump pardoned a bunch of people Mueller convicts?"

"I'm not going to touch that one," he said.

What if Trump wanted to pardon himself?

"I'm good, thanks," he said, as if he were resisting a plate of hors d'oeuvres — not touching that either.

BUT AREN'T YOU FREAKED OUT? DON'T YOU FUCKING CARE ABOUT OUR INSTITUTIONS OR THE RULE OF LAW?

"I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that stuff," Ryan said of the pardon issue.

Jesus Christ.

Later Paul Ryan had a little tiff with the reporter over his answers from the Q & A session, saying he doesn't think Trump will pardon people (he already has, just to show he can do it) or that he would fire people to obstruct justice in the Mueller investigation (he fired James Comey and also he's tried to fire Mueller and Jeff Sessions multiple times!). But honestly, Paul Ryan wants to focus on what's really important, which is his job being the most ineffective speaker in modern history for like three more months. After that, can he please go back to Janesville?

(Probably because he ordered some new leg weights on Amazon Prime and he is worried the woodchucks are going to eat them before he has a chance to do leg day with them.)

One more question with Paul Ryan before we fuck right off out of this post, and it is does he like Barack Obama better than he likes Donald Trump:

"I just did not like Obama's policies," he said, answering a different question.

That's a yes.

"Good" career, Paul Ryan! Now get the fuck out of here and drop your gavel in Pelosi's office before you leave, please and thanks.

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[ New York Times ]