The Shrill One, continues covering themes which regular readers will find very familiar by now:
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Look, I know wonks. Ryan is not a wonk. Yes, he likes charts and slides. But he very clearly doesn’t know what his numbers actually mean. When the famous plan was unveiled, it was quite clear that he never even realized that the Heritage projection of his plan’s impact made a completely ridiculous assertion about what would happen to unemployment. Nor did he realize that his assumptions about discretionary spending would require cutting such spending — including defense! — to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge.
One question one might ask is whether Ryan is aware that he isn’t actually a wonk, that he just plays one on TV. Maybe not; some of what he says suggests the Dunning-Kruger effect at work,: he may be so innumerate that he doesn’t realize that he has no idea what the numbers he throws around mean. And after all, why would he, given all the praise he’s received for putting up a line graph or pie chart here and there?
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As we all know, the Beltway Hack Full Employment And Mutual Protection Act of 1988 clearly states that at no time shall the received wisdom of the Deans of American Political Opinions ever be directly confronted or challenged.
So as long as the mental toddlers who choke-hold our media continue to be dazzled by Paul Ryan's meaningless, shiny flapdoodle, they will continue to let him call himself a wonk or a wizard or a necromancer or whatever else he wants.
So as long as the mental toddlers who choke-hold our media continue to be dazzled by Paul Ryan's meaningless, shiny flapdoodle, they will continue to let him call himself a wonk or a wizard or a necromancer or whatever else he wants.
3 comments:
Off topic: Just wanted to thank you for introducing me to Charlie Pierce's work.
Not to worry. We'll always have Paris.
And thank you so much for that introduction to Dunning-Kruger last week. The wiki article made my day!!
Don't forget sub 3 hour marathon runner!
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