One of the more unexpected political controversies of the weekend involved Paul Ryan and, of all things, a marathon.
Last week, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Paul Ryan said that he had run a marathon in under three hours, or, more precisely, “I had a two hour and fifty-something.” That is quite speedy, and running fans in the forums of Letsrun.com treated the claim with great skepticism. The Internet bears no trace of the run, and Ryan doesn’t have the extremely lean frame of your typical fast marathoner. Also, people who run that quickly are generally neurotic about their times. Shouldn’t Ryan remember his exactly? “He is too intense and driven to just forget something like that,” one commentator wrote.
Slate and Runner’s World investigated. Questions were raised, given the criticism of Ryan’s honesty in his convention speech. This evening, the terrific running journalist Scott Douglas figured out that Ryan had actually run a 4:01 in the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1990, when he was a college student.
Pressed for an explanation, Ryan said through a spokesperson he mixed up his brother’s time with his own.
Now, I couldn’t care less about Ryan’s athletic abilities, and the fact that he got caught lying about his marathon time is trivial when compared to the lies he told in his convention speech last week.
But therein lies the point: a pattern is emerging and it’s an important one. When Paul Ryan talks about public policy, he says things that aren’t true. When Paul Ryan talks about President Obama’s record, he says things that aren’t true. And when Paul Ryan talks about himself, he says things that aren’t true.
I realize much of the political establishment resists this, because so many are invested in the notion that Ryan is a bold truth-teller with unimpeachable credibility. David Brooks defended the candidate’s convention falsehoods by blaming Romney speechwriters for forcing poor Ryan to say things that aren’t true.
But given the pattern, isn’t it time to reevaluate those old assumptions? Isn’t it possible that the establishment that celebrated Ryan’s alleged honesty simply fell for a con?
James Fallows had a good piece on why he thinks the marathon lie matters.









