• Ryan Budget Makes for Great Unintentional Satire 
Stephen Markley, RedEye (Chicago) Paul Ryan  | You know how these popular political shows like “Scandal” and “House of Cards” are always trying to keep the hokey out of their political characters? For instance, my roommate is obsessed with re-watching “The West Wing” on Netflix right now, and it got me thinking, if any of these shows introduced a character as flamboyantly cruel, simple-minded, and ideologically right wing as Paul Ryan, the producers would have to say, “C’mon, let’s not be a bunch of Hollywood liberals making a cartoon character Republican who wants to steal from the poor to give to the rich.” [....] “Seriously, guys,” this effete Hollywood producer would tell his writers, “we can’t just have this fake Republican character writing in neo-Ayn Randian language suggesting that Pell Grants and health care for poor people is the equivalent of bland Soviet-style repression. We’re gonna look stupid.”   Published: 2013-03-12