The previous anti-Ryan myth we debunked a few weeks ago was a little more brazen than the latest version of media bias and laziness, but misleading political urban legends can take on a life of their own if the information isn’t aggressively corrected. Democrats and their media allies latched onto it anecdote about Paul Ryan’s recent visit to a diner in Ohio. As the story goes, Ryan showed up unannounced, posed for photos, and then left without doing anything, angering the organization’s director, an independent voter. To find out where this is going, read the article DNC press release and links to numerous messages repeating their version of events. Here’s the MSNBC crowd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSZFlRJ-kOk
There’s a slight problem, however, with Ryan’s critiques, which seemed a bit embarrassing at first glance: they’re misleading on almost every level. NBC News cleans up the mess piece by piece: (1) In fact, Ryan’s advisors obtained permission in advance for Ryan to appear in the kitchen. They were given the green delicate by someone who turned out to be a volunteer and therefore had no authority to make these kinds of decisions. Miscommunication and nothing more:
– said the head of the foundation a campaign advisor who applied for permission to visit before Ryan’s visit was granted access by a volunteer, not any person in authority at the diner. Antal said the volunteer did not have the authority to authorize or deny the detention of the Republican vice presidential candidate.
(2) Paweł Ryan he didin fact, make some effort by washing soiled dishes during your visit. The president of the organization was forced to invalidate the second-hand account, which turned out to be false:
Amid questions and criticism surrounding Paul Ryan’s visit to an Ohio diner this weekend, the president of the organization said that the Republican vice presidential candidate was actually scrubbing soiled dishes… The question is whether a Wisconsin congressman washed dishes that were actually soiled – as opposed to re-washing already pristine dishes to get a good photo opportunity – the president of the St. Vincent De Paul in Mahoning County, Brian Antal, explained that Ryan washed the soiled dishes. This differs from what Antal told the Washington Post on Monday. Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday morning, Antal said he was not on site when Ryan was at the diner and attributes his earlier comment that the dishes were pristine when Ryan washed them to hearing the details secondhand from a volunteer.
(3) Mr. Antal is here not “independent” the voter he claimed to be. Surprise: :
Brian J. Antal, president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Mahoning County, he described himself as an independent voter telling the Post that vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan entered a diner without permission on Monday and “did nothing.” But data from the Mahoning County Board of Elections shows this has voted in Democratic primaries since at least 1995.
So all three teeth attack are false. Here’s what actually happened: there was an innocent mix-up in the permitting process, Paul Ryan came in and did the right thing, then the story was distorted and spread to the press by a Democrat partisan who disingenuously presented himself as an “independent.” But other than that, the media did a great job job. Isn’t that just Paul Ryan? terrible? In fairness, mistakes happen — InWill the news outlets that reported this artificial provocation in the first place visibly correct the record?
The face of pure evil.