Gazette's Analogy Is Apt

The main headline on last night's Gazette said, "Rep. Ryan Tilts At Democratic Windmills." My immediate reaction was negative. After all Don Quixote is a sympathetic character to most and we all know that the Gazette is given to puffing little tinhorns for the GOP's "Rising Star." (Side note: How long can you be a rising star before you have to accomplish something?)

Paul Ryan may feel a bit like Don Quixote this week.

He's dreaming the impossible dream: Defeating the Democratic
juggernaut and forging a federal budget that borrows less, spends less and
creates more jobs than anything the Democratic leaders have come up
with.

I threw up a little in my mouth just then. But then I gave the analogy a little more thought and realized that the paper had actually hit Ryan's plan pretty close to center.

Don Quixote was delusional and launched his quest based on romantic notions of some long gone time when a knight errant may have had a noble mission. Ryan has based his budget on the belief that it's still 1994.

Quixote thought that the windmills were mighty dragons out to ravage the countryside. His affliction allowed him to see neither their true identity or use. Ryan's blind allegiance to tax cuts has blinded him to the situation they've left us in.

The Man of La Mancha travelled the countryside in the company of a whore and a fat man on an ass. Two of Ryan's proponents are David Vitter and Rush Limbaugh.

So let us raise a flagon to Rep Paul Ryan, The True Knight of the Woeful Countenance (but great hair.) He wanders the countryside in search of a romantic time when his ideas were relevant and welcomed, tilting at imaginary dragons in a land that has rejected him and his kith.