Susan Feinberg, an associate professor of management and global business at Rutgers University, caused a stir in the left-wing blogosphere over the weekend with her account of witnessing House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan drinking a glass of $350-a-bottle wine at an upscale restaurant near the Capitol. (Feinberg, who was at the restaurant, Bistro Bis, with her husband to celebrate her birthday, knew the wine was pricey because she could make out the name on the label and checked it on the wine list.) Feinberg confronted Ryan, accusing him of hypocrisy for drinking an expensive wine while advocating reduced spending for Medicare and Medicaid. But she didn't stop there. Feinberg also suggested Ryan might be guilty of ethics violations, secretly snapped a photo of him and two dinner companions, and then took the "story" to Talking Points Memo, the lefty site which ran a high-profile piece suggesting Ryan might be guilty of some sort of wrongdoing.
Worth reading the whole story.
HT Creative Minority Report
8 comments:
I clicked "time for a drink." If I were an economist dining with Paul Ryan, perhaps I would make that a $350/bottle drink.
This is pathetic, not unlike the Anita Hill testimony. There is plenty of substantive criticism that could be made of Paul Ryan. This is a distraction. People who eat at fine restaurants should not throw this kind of accusation. Now if twenty-five elderly people from Ryan's district had their noses pressed to the window, that would have been different. But of course they couldn't afford the fare.
SJ: I also can't stand the reports of how much the Obamas spend on meals, ect. It has nothing to do with anything in my book. Buying Chinese made TV dinners from Walmart for less money doesn't make someone more "humble" in my book. Small businesses, even wineries or resturants, need to charge more to produce their products and services.
Thanks Badger. We agree, it seems, that we should stick to the substantive points in debate, not scrounging for every little excuse for faux scandal.
The accusations about how much it costs for the Obamas to go out for the evening is particularly silly. Most of the expense is for secure transportation, and secret service protection. I wish we still had an atmosphere where the president-elect could rent a room at a boarding house and eat at a common table with the guests, casually walking over to the Capitol... But as things are, either we set a policy that no president, ever, will leave the confines of the White House except for the specific requirements of the duties of his office (he can take his wife out for the evening after his term ends), or we're going to run up humongous security bills.
SJ: I cover Catholic issues in Wisconsin. Ryan being a high profile Catholic member of Congress from Wisconsin makes it particularly apropos.
Now I'm confused, unless you've taken the night off and left Virginia to speak in your name. I never said you shouldn't cover Ryan, although I daresay I would have something critical to say about him almost any time his name appears. The fact that he was eating at a nice restaurant would not be an occasion for serious criticism.
There are many Catholics in Wisconsin participating in public life whom I appreciate. Father Robert Cornell was one.
"scrounging for every little excuse for faux scandal." I guess badgers do "scrounge" but the point being he's newsworthy regardless of whom it benefits.
The scrounging for faux scandal is the point we agree on. It is what the Rutgers professors did to Ryan. It is what the pundits do to Obama every time he wants to take his wife out for a relaxed evening.
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