By Michael Collins Piper
No media report on the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as Mitt Romney’s running mate has noted its real significance. The first-ever candidate on a national ticket of his generation to emerge from Congress—the exception being Barack Obama, who served in the Senate—Ryan spent his entire adult life, beginning at age 19, immersed in the inner circles of the “new” Republican Party.
This one subtle nuance says much about Ryan, who, as a high school senior, was voted “biggest brown-noser.” In fact, Ryan’s entire career has been sponsored by high-level, hard-line pro-Israeli forces that—at the time Ryan first became involved in politics—were just beginning to make their heavy-handed presence felt in the GOP. Until that time, the Republican Party had largely been indifferent to the demands of the Israeli lobby, with some GOP leaders actually (on occasion) standing up to that lobby.
Ryan’s first political stint came as an intern for then-Sen. Bob Kasten (R-Wis.), who—in prior service in the House—was associated with the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS), a bloc of House Republicans led by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). The group’s leaders publicly proclaimed their determination, in the words of then-Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.), to make the GOP “America’s new internationalist party.”
COS members were outspoken advocates for Israel and actively worked to advance the interests of Israel, once even frustrating an effort by former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Thomas Moorer to force Congress to launch an inquiry into Israel’s murderous 1967 attack on the USS Liberty.
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