Paul Ryan pre-emptively surrenders

By Bryan Fischer

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Host of "Focal Point" on AFR Talk, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net

The brand new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, barely has the gavel in his hands and he has already surrendered on the fight to defund Planned Parenthood.

Never mind that the latest video release by the Center for Medical Progress features a Planned Parenthood abortionist laughing about her ongoing goal to remove an entire intact head from a baby. Something to "strive for," she said.

Paul Ryan certainly seems like a nice guy. He's friendly, affable, has a quick smile, and is a great family man. Kudos to him for only taking the job as Speaker on the condition that he be able to spend his weekends at home with his family instead of out and about raising cash for the Republican Party.

But God has called us to something better than being "nice." He has called us to be "good." The difference? Nice guys never confront evil; good guys do. Jesus was not executed because he was nice. He was executed because he was good.

In politics, nice guys get rolled. Nice guys don't put up a fight. They want to go along to get along. They want to be the reasonable, accommodating ones in the room. And so the guys on the other side of the aisle, who never budge on their convictions, carry the day because nice guys will always fold in the end.

A nice guy with the right convictions but no stomach for the fight will always lose to the guy with bad convictions who's playing for keeps. Nice guys will always find a good reason to capitulate. Being "realistic" is certainly a nice-sounding explanation.

From Speaker Ryan's interview with Dana Bash on CNN (emphasis mine):

"I think we need to be very clear about what we can and cannot achieve and not set expectations that we know we can't reach given the constraints of the Constitution," Ryan told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." (snip)

"I don't think Planned Parenthood should get a red cent from the taxpayer. I've always believed that, even before these disgusting videos came out," Ryan said. "But I believe we need to do our oversight. We're just beginning to start a committee to investigate Planned Parenthood. That's important. So the special committee on Planned Parenthood, I think, should be in the driver's seat overseeing this process."

Bash asked, "Will you defund Planned Parenthood?"

"This is what I mean when I say being an effective opposition party. I think being an effective opposition party means being honest with people upfront about what it is we can and cannot achieve," he said.

"But we also have to push issues where we can push issues, we have to speak truth to power," he added. "We have a president that isn't willing to listen, that isn't going to sign lots of our bills into law, we have a Senate that has a very difficult process when it comes to actually getting bills voted on, so knowing that we have those constraints, we have to operate within those constraints."

Speaker Ryan's bottom line: under my run as Speaker, President Obama is going to get whatever he wants.

It's hard to read Ryan's comments any other way. It's useless, there's no point in even trying, there are things we can't achieve, it's just too difficult, we have all these constraints, I hope America will understand.

President Obama, on the other hand, would shut down the entire federal government in a heartbeat before he would yield one inch on funding for the baby butchers at Planned Parenthood. He is not a man who just has convictions, he's prepared to stand for them, to fight for them, and to refuse to concede one cubic centimeter of soil to his political adversaries. Speaker Paul Ryan? Not so much.

How long would President Obama have been prepared to keep the government on lockdown, shutting down White House tours and closing monuments to veterans, all in his determination to make the pro-baby forces blink first? We'll never know, will we?

Paul Ryan is a good man. He is a man of sincere faith. He has an obvious and heartwarming commitment to his family. His personal convictions are solid, and his heart is in the right place.

But politics is not just about having your heart in the right place. It's about will and a determination to fight for what you believe in. Paul Ryan is not and will not be a fighter on our issues. He will not even get in the ring with the president on the most profound moral issue of our day.

The reality, for good or for ill, is that Paul Ryan will be Speaker of the House as long as he wants to be. He's young, likeable, and loves to cross the aisle to get things done, which is why the Democrats and the GOP establishment loves him.

Bottom line: Paul Ryan is just a nicer, sweeter, and friendlier John Boehner.

Is there a silver lining in this cloud? Maybe there is. If we elect a president who is a fighter on our issues, who will be firm, clear and unbending in advancing the cause of social conservatism, well, Paul Ryan might just go along with him. If, for instance, we elect a president who vows to veto any bill that has one red cent of funding for Planned Parenthood, Paul Ryan just might realize, given the "constraints of the Constitution," he'd better get his team in line and zero out that funding after all.

If Paul Ryan is going to capitulate, why not have him capitulate to one of our guys instead of one of theirs? If Speaker Ryan is all about going along to get along, how about having him go along to get along with a pro-life president instead of a pro-death one?

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer