http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/06/22/3791105/paul-ryan-the-most-overrated-intellect-in-washington/
"Remember 2009? Glenn Beck was a ratings bonanza for Fox News. Sarah Palin, with her false warnings of looming “death panels,” was a thought leader in conservative circles. Groups opposed to the Affordable Care Act poured angry supporters into lawmakers’ town halls, arming them with advice like “be disruptive early and often,” “try to ‘rattle him,’ not have an intelligent debate,” and “watch for an opportunity to yell.” It was not a high point for intellectual discourse within the American right. Amidst this cacophony, Paul Ryan appeared like a beacon of light. Personable and soft-spoken, capable of stringing together numbers in a way that sounds impressive, Ryan was the yin to a movement drunk on its own yang. And he soon milked his own novelty — a tea partier! who is also a policy wonk! — to become the toast of the political commentariat. Conservative writer Bill Kristol touted Ryan as the GOP’s ideal presidential candidate — asking his readers “Why not the best?” Liberal wonkblogger-turned-voxsplainer Ezra Klein touted the “virtues of Ryan’s roadmap,” the future speaker’s aggressive plan to shrink entitlements. After Ryan’s election to the speakership seemed inevitable, the Christian Science Monitor profiled him under the fawning title “Paul Ryan: Budget wonk to Congress’s rescue?” As Alec MacGillis wrote in a piece that was far more skeptical of Ryan’s policy chops, “Paul Ryan stands as the Republican Party’s big thinker, its philosopher prince.” But Speaker Ryan’s reputation for wonkitude is not deserved. Indeed, his proposals typical follow a familiar pattern — a pattern Ryan repeated on Wednesday with a package of health reforms Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young described as a plan to “replace 20 million people’s health insurance with 37 pages of talking points"."
