Ryan as Speaker is fine with LITD

I just haven't mustered the motivation to cover the horse-race minutiae of the matter.

Has Paul Ryan occasionally evoked mild dismay in me?  Certainly. But I think Ross Kaminsky at The American Spectator gets to the essence of why I can live with a Speaker Ryan. At this point, I am far less interested in a politician's voting record, involvement with particular policy initiatives or pieces of legislation, associations with particular organizations or political savvy than I am what kind of person he or she is - how he or she stacks up with regard to character, intellect, degree of decency, understanding of what has made America exceptional, and reliance on God.

Kaminsky feels like he has hung with Ryan enough to be able to take the measure of the man:

 I’ve known Paul Ryan since before his first election to Congress and supported him with a contribution in that first campaign. (We also had a few beers at a Chicago White Sox game, although I’m a Cubs fan. Hey, at least they made the playoffs.) He was then and remains today an intelligent, funny, slightly nerdy, patriotic, policy-minded, family-oriented, self-effacing true gentleman.

Paul Ryan is a policy wonk’s policy wonk, a man who has his dream job as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and whose political aspirations relate solely to trying to make this country a better place for his three children — and your children as well. He did not run for president and, much as in this case, did not want to run for vice president but has a sense of public duty that is rarely found in politicians of this or any era if convinced that he is truly the right person at the right time to do something meaningful.

Although I do not agree with every vote he has cast, I defy you to name a member of Congress who has done more to further a national discussion on the proper role of government and on how, particularly when it comes to federal spending and taxation, the federal government can be reformed in accordance with our Founding principles and common sense.

Elsewhere in his piece, Kaminsky expresses his irritation with litmus-test freaks and self-styled purists who are apparently incapable of getting a balanced, comprehensive view of those who are at least ostensibly our ideological brethren. You know the type - the ones who in comment threads call for "throwing the bum out" if there is one instance of tactically disappointing behavior.

Now, that said, thinking about this entire matter gets me to thinking about a mirror-reverse inclination of mine. I can compile a fairly lengthy list of thoroughly decent, smart, God-fearing people whose general orientation is toward freedom, tradition and a mature engagement of the world, who I have nonetheless written off because of transgressions that, for me, constituted bridges too far. Think Kasich and Medicare expansion (and his insipid defense of his position in which he referenced the Pearly Gates), or Mitt Romney (forthright assertion that he would go for cost-of-living minimum-wage increases, assertion that human activity was disturbing the global climate, the characterization of the Most Equal Comrade, who is the most poisonous figure in American history, as "not a bad guy, he's just in over his head").

Ryan has uttered no such deal-breaker. And, as Kaminsky says, he's smart and principled. And consider this question: Now that his running is a reality, which even more pure contender has an actual shot?

I think Paul Ryan would fight for what is good, right and true as House Speaker. That's not something you can say about most people - on Capitol Hill or anywhere else.