Since the failed run for the White House of Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan in 2012, neither man is held in the highest regard among voters. But Ryan’s spinelessness has caused a broad swath of former supporters to join his detractors in calling him the “Cowardly Ryan,” a play on a character from the Wizard of Oz.
Paul Ryan’s inability to pick a side — let alone stand for anything other than his own self-interest — has continued unabated since that time, and his failure to lead the House during the investigation into Russian meddling in our democratic elections has only made him look worse.
Now that Donald Trump has been implicated, however, in financial crimes and campaign finance violations that call into question the very legitimacy of his entire administration, it almost seems like a no-brainer that a self-serving politician like Ryan would be quick to assail him as unrepresentative of the Republican Party and throw Trump under the bus.
Unfortunately, we’re still talking about the same Paul Ryan.
So when the White House reporter for the Washington Post, Josh Dawsey, approached the House Speaker for some comment on the landmark day in American history that we experienced yesterday, his response was typically noncommittal — despite the fact that there has never been another President who was credibly implicated in a crime in open court.
We are aware of Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea to these serious charges. We will need more information than is currently available at this point.”
Hardly the response one might expect from a politician committed to ensuring the fairness of American democracy.
What’s worse is, Rep. Ryan is the only prominent Republican who even bothered to respond to the Michael Cohen bombshell on the same day it happened. Rest assured, if the President were a Democrat, every Republican in Congress would have been wearing an “IMPEACH” t-shirt 5 minutes after Cohen walked out of court.
Featured image via screen capture
