Reason for optimism about Ryan as speaker
I may be a cockeyed optimist, but I have some level of hope that the agreement to anoint Wisconsin Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan as speaker of the House may help to bring together a disparate, dysfunctional GOP and Congress.
No less than Vice President Joe Biden graciously characterized Ryan in a CBS 60 Minutes interview aa “a good man,” a “decent man,” and from what I know of the chairman, I concur.
One can disagree with Chairman Ryan’s generally conservative politics, but I consider him to be a “policy wonk” and one who could serve as a mature, adult conciliator. He is a man of dignity and refinement. I am confident that unlike his coarse, crude, profane predecessor, he will not be characterizing opposition legislation as “chicken crap” nor delighting in telling any foe, “Go — yourself.”
I am certain that Paul Ryan will not seek to facilitate government shutdowns or debt ceiling crises which could endanger the economy and the markets and leave the country unable to pay the debts its own Congress has placed us on the hook to fund.
Members of the Republican Freedom Caucus as well as other GOP members of the House recognize that Paul Ryan is their best hope to unite them and restore some level of esteem to the House and to Congress. If chaos and turmoil should ensue, the speaker-to-be would have every right to resign. Let us hope it does not come to that.
Americans of goodwill and of all political persuasions should be rooting for our new speaker to succeed.
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper St. Clair