Lyin' Ryan runs circles around truth-challenged pols

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Bees buzz, the moon orbits Earth, coaches yell, parents embarrass their kids ...

And politicians lie.

It's what they do. Oh, more genteel people call it "exaggerating" or "couching the truth" or "taking things out of context."

In other words, they lie.

The presidential campaign has been one lie after another. From what I have heard so far, Republicans have been quite a bit more truth-challenged, but the Dems are working hard at their convention this week to give the GOP a run for its money.

Bill Clinton's speech last night was masterful: a point-by-point, detail-filled refutation of the Republican case against Barack Obama. It was entertaining, too. He didn't need an empty chair to keep his audience enthralled for 45 minutes.

Clinton acted the part of the Myth Buster when it came to Republican lies about welfare, Obamacare, Medicare and the stimulus. It was a sensational performance.

Yet he lied, too. I couldn't believe it when he suggested that Obama embraced the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan ... because that simply isn't true. It was kind of like Paul "Lyin'" Ryan a week earlier blaming Obama for America getting its credit rating downgraded -- even though Congressional Republicans, egged on by tea-partiers, were the ones who refused to raise the debt ceiling, leading directly to the downgrade.

My former employer, AP, got criticized for including the Monica Lewinsky affair in its fact-checking story about Clinton's speech. It was in response to Clinton accusing Republicans of lying. And it was perfectly fair territory. Clinton has become something of a hero these days, even to some GOPers, but history knows he lied and lied and lied and lied as president.

Yep, they're all liars. And here's a new low ... or is it a new high? (I don't know how to score these things.)

Lyin' Ryan claimed his best marathon time was "two hours and fifty something." When I heard that, I thought, "Wow, that's really fast!"

Fast, yes. And loose with the facts, too.

According to Runner's World magazine, which keeps track of such things, Ryan only ran one marathon, in 1990. He completed the 26.2 miles in 4 hours, 1 minute, 25 seconds. Which is pretty close, a mere 1 hour-plus off his claim.

A few things:

1. I guess this means Runner's World now must be part of the mainstream liberal media.

2. How pathetic that he felt a need to lie about something as unimportant as his marathon time. I thought Mitt Romney was the big liar on that ticket, but it's obvious Ryan is pathological.

3. Ryan isn't even the fastest recent GOP vice presidential candidate. Sarah Palin once ran a 3:59:36 marathon. I'm sure she could see Russia during her entire run.

4. My wife ran the Chicago marathon in 2003. Roberta's time was 3:59:35 -- exactly 1 second faster than Palin and nearly 2 minutes faster than Lyin' Ryan.

Maybe Roberta should be a vice presidential candidate in 2016!

Nah ... she's far too honest for that.
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