You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Paul Ryan.

Ryan was on Laura Ingraham’s show this morning, talking to guest host Raymond Arroyo, and when he was asked about Newt Gingrich’s critique of his Medicare reform proposal he took Gingrich to the woodshed.

Enjoy.

Ryan is exactly right. What actually works in Medicare is Medicare Advantage and, even though it was insane to enact it at the time it was enacted, the prescription drug benefit. Those programs tend not to break the bank and they’re extremely popular. Why? because they involve choice and competition. And as Ryan says, seniors are used to having choices for health care; they can handle shopping for premium-supported or voucher-based medical plans. Certainly they can handle them better than Washington bureaucrats can.

Particularly when Ryan’s plan would provide for a 10-year runup to the changeover; it wouldn’t affect anybody old than 55.

Gingrich blasting that plan was a blunder of monumental proportions. At this point, particularly after the halting and incompetent way he’s handled the launch of his campaign, one wonders where the former House Speaker expects to find any support in the primary. Worst of all for Gingrich, another Georgian – Herman Cain – is now the flavor of the month in GOP circles and it appears Cain, rather than Gingrich, would be the favorite to get the primary vote in that state. So Gingrich’s campaign looks like a hopeless cause before it even gets started.