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Ryan Washing Clean Pots Infuriates Democrats

Oct. 19, 2012 5:44pm

Robert Kroese is the author of several humorous science fiction and fantasy novels, including Mercury Falls and Disenchanted. Kroese is originally from […]

Robert Kroese is the author of several humorous science fiction and fantasy novels, including Mercury Falls and Disenchanted. Kroese is originally from Michigan but now lives in Ripon, California, with his wife and two children. His last name is pronounced “KROO-zee.” Booklist said Mercury Falls "has cult favorite written all over it," but we checked and it doesn't.

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rob@robertkroese.com

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Ryan Washing Clean Pots Infuriates Democrats

Ryan Dishwashing Photo From Ohio (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer/ contrib)

Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan got more publicity than he expected when he recently showed up at a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio for a photo-op. Critics pounced on a statement by St. Vincent DePaul Society President Brian Antal, who claimed, “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.” Then video surfaced indicating that Ryan did do something, even if it was to wash some dishes that were already clean.

The notion of a Republican candidate washing clean dishes was an irresistible metaphor for many on the Left. “Ryan Stunt Exposes Fraudulence of GOP Charity Rhetoric,” blared the headline of a piece by The Nation’s Ben Adler. His essay doesn’t come anywhere close to establishing the validity of that claim, of course. It ends with this gem:

Personal charitable contributions or volunteerism are no substitute for the far greater sums that Romney and Ryan would steal from the poor and give to the rich through cuts to taxes and spending. If Ryan had actually spent a few minutes cleaning pots and pans at a soup kitchen, it would be no compensation for his proposal to starve families by cutting funding for food stamps. But it’s worth noting that even Ryan’s supposed commitment to private charity is just dishonest window dressing.

In other words, Ryan’s private charitable actions are irrelevant, but while we’re on the topic, they’re also a fraud. I know because I saw a picture.

The logic here is so feeble that it isn’t really worth refuting. Adler doesn’t have any more reason to think Ryan’s commitment to charity is a fraud than I have to think Barack Obama is clinically depressed because he fakes a smile when people take his picture. When the Left gets so worked up about something so incredibly trivial, though, it’s worth asking what’s really bothering them.

My theory is that those on the Left don’t like to see Republicans washing clean dishes because pointless busywork has long been a staple of Democratic policy. If you doubt that claim, consider the $862 billion stimulus package. Ask yourself: what was the point of the stimulus package? In the Democrats’ own rhetoric, the point was “to get America moving again” or to “put people to work.” You have to dig pretty deep in the stimulus bill to find any concrete goals beyond getting something, anything to happen. It doesn’t particularly matter where we are going or whether that work needs to be done, as long as there’s a big flurry of activity. Anyone want to wash some clean dishes?

For example, the stimulus package provided $2 million for a Nevada firehouse that the state can’t afford to staff. One Texas county spent $4 million to weatherize just 47 homes – a whopping $78,000 per house. An aerospace company received $15 million to monitor water quality in a Ventura County creek it has already been fined for polluting. A wealthy Indian casino got $54 million. $20 million was spent on signs indicating that the stimulus program was “putting people back to work.” Evidently a job is a job, even if it’s a job putting up signs indicating that you have a job.

Cynics will argue that in any program of this size, there is inevitably going to be some waste. But that’s missing the point. When you’ve defined your goal as “putting people back to work,” there’s no such thing as waste. It doesn’t matter if you’re building a fire station that isn’t going to be used, working on a scientific study that nobody is going to read or, for that matter, washing dishes that don’t need to be washed. The important thing is that you’re doing something. You’ve got a job! And with a job comes income, and with income comes spending, and spending helps the economy. Problem solved! This is Keynesian economics in a nutshell.

Of course, when the benefits of busywork prove illusory and the program is a complete failure even by your own standards, you’ve got to do some back-tracking, claiming that things would have been even worse if you hadn’t acted so decisively to put people back to work. Even objective failure can’t dim the faith of a fanatic Keynesian.

The real problem Democrats have with Paul Ryan’s publicity stunt wasn’t that he was washing clean dishes – it was that he was washing clean dishes without getting millions of dollars in other people’s money to do it. Put up a sign in front of that soup kitchen touting the “American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” and give Ryan a hefty check and voila! He’s another Keynesian economics success story.

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Comments (19)

DMD
Posted on October 22, 2012 at 9:38am
I notices he was wearing $750 shoes too.
Oh wait that was someone else.

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14plumerias
Posted on October 22, 2012 at 2:10am
I know a few teachers earning near $60 an hr. teaching classes of 4-10 students that could have been accommodated in other classes, but hey it was Obama (somebody else’s) money. This kind of waste went on all over the country with the “stimulus”.

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Dont-hate-on-me-2
Posted on October 21, 2012 at 10:48pm
Can never be to sure at soup kitchens just how clean those pots are. Good for Ryan double checking and putting in some elbow grease. we do the same here, it looks clean and we wash it before cooking to make sure there is no issue with bacteria inside and out. It is just good standards.

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nesmond
Posted on October 21, 2012 at 4:03pm
I hope him and Romney clean out the White House next month.

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123456beatriz
Posted on October 21, 2012 at 2:11pm
I have never seen in my life how hypocritical and prejudice people are on the liberal left. Hypocrites!

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SolitudeBliss
Posted on October 21, 2012 at 8:58am
The guy from the soup kitchen said 1) Ryan did wash dirty dishes and 2) he was scared of alienating donators since it’s supposed to be a non-partisan charity. Even the local media in Youngstown has been publishing the misleading stories. And in the Youngstown and surrounding areas you have mostly brainwashed lemmings.

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indy1
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 4:54pm
NBC says your premise is a lie:

Ryan did wash dirty dishes during soup kitchen visit
By NBC’s Alex Moe and Betsy Cline

LYNCHBURG, VA — Amid questions and criticisms related to Paul Ryan’s visit this weekend to an Ohio soup kitchen, the charity’s president said the Republican vice presidential candidate did, in fact, scrub dirty dishes though his visit wasn’t officially sanctioned.

The question of whether the Wisconsin congressman cleaned dishes that were actually dirty – as opposed to re-washing already clean dishes so as to get a good photo opportunity — Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society President Brian Antal clarified that Ryan did clean soiled dishes. This differs from what Antal had told The Washington Post Monday.

Speaking Tuesday morning with NBC News, Antal said he was not on-site when Ryan was at the soup kitchen and attributes his earlier comments that the dishes were clean when Ryan washed them to hearing the details second-hand from a volunteer.

Following a town hall meeting in Youngstown, OH on Saturday, Ryan — joined by his wife and three kids — made a quick stop at the St. Vincent De Paul Society shortly after the homeless people had breakfast. There were only volunteers left inside the building by the time Ryan arrived, as his public event ran longer than expected.

After arriving at the soup kitchen — where Secret Service agents and staff had gathered before the motorcade arrived — the Ryan family put on w

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- betterthantv
  Posted on October 21, 2012 at 1:38pm
  I think your missing the point. The author isn’t saying he was cleaning “clean” dishes. He was using the critics narrative to drive home a point. And a good point at that.
  
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Rob1231
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 3:31pm
Apparently he had to re-wash a pot a democrat had supposedly cleaned. Just like in politics..The dems can’t or won’t do the job and the Republicans have to come in and clean up everything.

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- The Jewish Avenger
  Posted on October 21, 2012 at 2:35am
  Now that makes sense.
  
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actt2
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 9:20am
Let’s face it……..everything a republican does makes democrats “outraged”.

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- lovenfl3
  Posted on October 20, 2012 at 10:38am
  The Obama campaign has become just so pathetic. First it was the fake war on women, then it was Big Bird, and now we have the binder full of women strategy. It almost makes me feel sorry for them, almost. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlmEt4ESH20
  
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Irememberamerica
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 7:33am
Just dumb on Ryan’s part. I can’t defend this.

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LeadNotFollow
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 3:42am
.
How many hundreds of phony set up photo ops has Obama participated in?
Obama only brings out his dog, two daughters, and Mother-in-law, for photo ops.

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DNOLAN
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 2:56am
Lets be honest, there was an overreaction to the stunt. It got far too much media attention, thousands o candidates have done the same every campaign period.

But, on the flip side, it was a stupid stunt to begin with, it left Ryan open to criticism when staying at home would have netted him a far better result. Less showboating, more results. Fact is, having someone simply state “wtf was Biden smiling for” would have far more for this campaign that a token charity moment photo op could ever hope to achieve.

Seriously Biden, I saw that look before, 21 Jump Street, Stage 1. On the plus side, I reminded my mother in law of one important fact:

No matter how this election goes, that was likely the last time she will see Joe Biden for at least 3 years. A win win situation for us all.

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- shorelineliz
  Posted on October 20, 2012 at 3:42am
  I think it is a FABULOUS STUNT! I love it. Paul Ryan can come to my house and wash my clean pots anytime! Democrats are sour pusses! Sour grapes! They can all go swill their vinegary Cabernet Sauvignon in the boardroom of their little entitled walnut paneled clubs and drone on about how the 1 percent are so rich while they call their brokers to buy and sell and watch their Chinese pension funds go up and up and up. They are hypocrites and liars and no one should care what they think! Ryan is squeaky clean and they HATE a moral man cause they are classless raunchy abortion loving gas bags. Was that too over the top or what?
  
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- shorelineliz
  Posted on October 20, 2012 at 3:44am
  Gas bags. Cabernet Sauvignon gas bags. they think they got the market cornered on soup kitchens. Ryan can wash my clean pots anytime. They are just enraged he stole a play from their playbook. They sit around drinking in their walnut paneled “clubs” that only a token AFrican American belongs to and drone on and on about equality and fairness and Civil Rights. yawn. So predictable.
  
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54smom
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 12:22am
Oh heck, thats what I do, I wash my dishes then I put them in my dishwasher…So whats their point.

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Mr.buff1959
Posted on October 20, 2012 at 12:21am
Well said Robert.

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