Platitudes from Planet Paul Ryan...

Well, Paul Ryan decided to gather up his endless list of Ryanisms and put them into one Seuss-like book, "The Way Forward."

To get a sense of what you will find in this must read rehash filled with dire warnings and contradictions, behold Ryan's God-like statement of party aggrandizement:

Also out as a children's book.

“This can’t be the full measure of our party and our movement. If it is, we’re dead and the country is lost.”

Yes, without the Republican Party, "the country is lost." You see, our big brother authoritarians must convert the U.S. to a one party system to save it, just as the founding fathers envisioned.

Pity the Poor Fool: Ryan shows how little he gets it. While people are repulsed by his cruel Dickensian platform, he thinks it's a "communication" problem:

He acknowledges his communication problems in explaining his budget ideas, which the House Republicans’ campaign arm encouraged candidates to disavow and left Ryan feeling “ostracized.”

Ryan even basks in his own hypocrisy, bragging how having it both ways allows him to see both sides:

While Ryan has faced criticism from Democrats who say he would like to strip social services and make changes to Social Security, Ryan writes that he saw the benefits and importance of the programs in his life. When his father died he received Social Security survivor benefits that allowed him to pay for college. Ryan writes that critics distort his plan.

I suppose it was just a coincidence that so many different critics distorted his "plan" in the exact same way. And Ryan's egocentric vision prevents him from noticing the devolution of his own party:

Ryan singles out the government shutdown in fall 2013 … the government shuttered for 16 days and the Republican brand took a massive hit in voters’ eyes.

Ryan’s in a bad State of Denial: Ryan says past economic failures were the result of bad messaging. If only he had used the right words...:

Ryan says his party needs to be more inclusive, spend far more time talking to black and Latino voters, and avoid playing into what he calls a caricature of the "cold-hearted Republican."

When a constituent once clearly explained the reality and the need for our social safety net programs, instead of getting the point, cold-hearted Ryan questioned his...terminology.

jsonline: He even points to some of his own past rhetoric as part of the problem … his use of the phrase "makers and takers" … The congressman says he began second-guessing his use of that language after a constituent approached him at the Rock County 4-H Fair in July 2012 and asked, "Who are the takers? Is it the person who lost their job and is on unemployment benefits? Is it the person who served in Iraq and gets their medical care through the VA?"

Ryan stopped using the term when he realized that "it sounds like we're saying people who are struggling are deadbeats ... The phrase gave insult where none was intended." 

You know, like his condescending description of the safety nets as hammocks. No insult intended, right? 

Governing, but not Governing?!! In a mind bender, Ryan thinks governing ourselves is different than governing ourselves through government. I’ll admit, this play on words has been a pet peeve of mine for at least a decade. And yet, it makes sense to conservatives. String together just he highlighted words. It's crazy:

Ryan offers a broad attack on progressivism across the decades and a sharp denunciation of Barack Obama as a president whose "policies represent an ideological mission to re-order the human condition through state action, empowering bureaucrats to decide what's best for everyone rather than allowing citizens to govern themselves."

No one wants to decide “what’s best for everyone" except maybe the GOP. No liberal, progressive, or Democrat ever said that, or would say something so ridiculous. That’s a fiction dreamed up by conservative paranoids, who are pushing for a Borg-like one party authority. Talk about irony.