Like last week, this week’s Sift will have only one main article. The rise of Paul Ryan is making me revisit my misspent Objectivist youth in “Ayn, Paul, and Me”.
In the weekly summary, everybody was talking about Clint Eastwood’s empty chair. They were also talking about where Eastwood debated the chair — apparently at some kind of Republican get-together in Tampa. I must have missed it.
Oh yeah — it was the Republican National Convention, where we found out that George W. Bush is an un-person. Eight years of recent American history disappeared down the memory hole. Maybe the Democrats will figure out how to dredge them up this week.
Also, the convention raised the stakes in a brewing conflict between the press and the Romney campaign. Politicians have never been known as truth-tellers, but Romney is lying in a no-apologies fact-check-this way that threatens the foundations of political journalism. Journalists are starting to strike back, but it might be too late.
The Weekly Sift 