Paul Ryan's fake photo ops

[photo via TPM]

Paul Ryan is a textbook narcissist. He loves his photo ops so much he's willing to bully his way into pretending to wash dishes at a food kitchen without getting permission through the proper channels. Which didn't sit so well with the director of the charity:

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.

He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”

Ryan had stopped by the soup kitchen for about 15 minutes on his way to the airport after his Saturday morning town hall in Youngstown. By the time he arrived, the food had already been served, the patrons had left, and the hall had been cleaned. ...

“Had they asked for permission, it wouldn’t have been granted. … But I certainly wouldn’t have let him wash clean pans, and then take a picture,” Antal said.

Ryan's camera trickery caused Mr. Antal no end of grief. His charity depends largely on private donations. They are deliberately non-political, as a church sponsored charity should be. He would have denied any campaign that photo-op, even if it was real. And apparently his donors weren't happy to see the soup kitchen tacitly supporting a political candidate. The charity will probably lose some donors, which of course will hurt their ability to help the poor who need their assistance. But Ryan got his photo and that's all that matters to him. Classic con move.

This reminded me of Ryan's first days on the road as the anointed one. He crashed a tailgating party at an Ohio State University football game to pretend to flip burgers and lost a game of cornhole to an 11 year old because he was too busy posing for the photographers.

From the pool report:

Mr. Ryan moved on to play a game of corn hole with 11-year-old Zachary Wymer. Each scored one point. As he missed a shot, Ryan said, “I missed trying to get the camera guy there,’’ meaning one of the press pool cameramen.

How prissy does he look in this shot anyway? Really don't get this he-man Ryan schtick the media is always swooning over because he lifts weights. Ryan doesn't even look that buff for all the working out he allegedly does. And I look at Paul Ryan's cornhole photo and my gaydar leaps to eleventy. Is it just me?

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]