Paul Ryan: Obama has been “fundamentally un-presidential”

In some of the bluntest language yet, the Wisconsin Congressman pulls no punches in describing the President:

Ryan, who was elected to Congress in 1998, says Obama is a stark contrast to former president Bill Clinton, who often disagreed with House Republicans but for the most part respectfully engaged with lawmakers. Obama, he says, could learn a couple of things from Clinton, who knew how to negotiate in a divided government. “I was pretty new when Clinton was president,” Ryan says. “But I learned then that presidents serve themselves well when they say the same thing in public as they do in private, dealing with congressional leaders earnestly and honestly.”

“[Obama] has made it harder to establish trust, which will make it harder to find compromise,” Ryan says. “As much as he wants to come off as a leader, every time he talks about Republicans holding out to save fat-cat corporate-jet loopholes — which he knows is false — or leaks alleged spending cuts to the press, he reduces his leadership. He knows how that damages his credibility up here. Yet he continues to spin.”

Indeed, in almost every sense, Ryan says, Obama has been “fundamentally un-presidential” throughout the summer, “dragging his feet, failing to address the looming debt crisis — which he knows is coming — because he remains committed to his ideology.”

“This is, unfortunately, the way he operates,” Ryan says. “This is his pattern of behavior, this is his personality. For the next 18 months, it will probably be like this. It’ll be in-your-face class warfare, with bitter appeals to envy, fear, and anxiety, plus the demonization of the other side’s motives.”

I’m reminded of this post back in 2008 where I quote prominent Religious Leftist Brian McClaren:

I am voting for Barack Obama because I value personal integrity in leaders. Personal integrity requires a leader to repudiate falsehood, hate hypocrisy, and pursue fidelity to justice and truth, in private and in public. A person shows a pattern of integrity through fidelity to his or her spouse, through his or her refusal to employ falsehood for personal advantage, and through his or her willingness to admit mistakes and forgo excuses or blame-shifting whenever lapses occur. It seems clear to me that Senator Obama surpasses his counterpart on all counts.

That was originally posted on a blog called ClergyForObama, a site no longer viewable by the public which I consider telling. More telling were my words in response to McClaren back in 2008, words that seem remarkably similar to Ryan’s words today:

… the ‘sphere is replete with objective evidence countering McLaren’s abject worship and adulation.

You can go to ABC, home of Charlie Gibson, and Jake Tapper’s takedown of Barack.

You can go to Newsweek and Michael Isikoff’s chronicling of Obama’s ties to lobbyists.

You can go to FactCheck.Org to view how Obama takes money from big oil.

You can go to Politico’s piece on Obama’s attempt to hide his radically liberal stance on gun control, something he’s attempted to run from during the campaign.

And that’s just for starters people. You know there’s more out there, tons more.

Barack Obama is hardly who he says he is, and much less who his ardent supporters say he is.

So what does that make McLaren?