What could possibly be bizarre about a rant against Powerpoint?
More recently, Joe Lieberman did the same in 2000.
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Has there even been a case of the VP leaving (being pushed from) the campaign at this stage? Perhaps we still have time to get palin on the ballot?
It’s bizarre if you take the article as being serious. However, as some suggested, it does read like satire.
Eagleton was pushed off after the conventions due to his mental health problems. In the (striclty hypothetical, Ryan isn’t going to leave the ticket) case Ryan wanted to leave, the GOP might be stuck with his name on a couple state ballots, but since voters are pretty much universally looking for the name on the top of the ticket, that hardly matters in any case.
Oh dearie me, they really are in a froth over there, aren’t they? 
I don’t see why this is so hard to believe. We had a precedent for this 4 years ago.
In theory Ryan could resign the nomination leaving he RNC to pick a new candidate (though as you pointed out it’s probally to late to change the ballot in some states). That’s not going to happen unless Ryan fucks up in a really huge way. Like publically calling Romney the Antichrist or have a sex tape of him & a male prostitute leaked bad. It would be a total diastor for Romney to change running mate at this stage. The only way Romney could do it without dooming his campaign would be if Ryan died in a car/plane crash or was assasinated. Even natural causes could reflectly badly on Romney, if it was something that was at all predictable.
I’ve read the Missouri ballots are locked in on September 25. This was mentioned in a story about Todd Akin. It was given as a reason why the Democrats held off on pushing his rape remarks controversy. They wanted to wait until the Republicans were committed to running Akin and couldn’t replace him with another nominee.
And now we see the REAL reason Romney was wondering about opening the windows on airplanes… he wants to loose Ryan, but not his personal jet… uhhh hmmmmm the picture is becoming clearer…
But seriously, after Palin, this is sort of like a rerun, don’t you think?
I’m thinking that Ryan’s congressional race may be taking on water and he wants to distance himself from Romney like all the other GOP congress critters are doing. Too bad, he’s on the ticket as VP.
AND, if he did happen to fall out of an airplane with roll down windows… would that mean that Boehner would move up to VP? Wonder if he’s spending his nights right now, day dreaming about the swearing in and telling himself “I will NOT cry. I will NOT cry.”
Politico doesn’t do satire do they? I mean not without it being obvious. This isn’t the Onion.
I checked cnn and (ms)nbc and didn’t see any reference to this…
My $ is still on satire (but it’s a small bet.) 
Simon is one of their columnists which explains the casual writing style and strange but dead on accurate attacks on Powerpoint. The Craig Robinson quote in the first paragraph was really published in the NYTimes and Ryan was quoted as saying “I’m kind of a PowerPoint guy, so I hope you’ll bear with me” in numerous articles unrelated to Simon’s column, includnig the the National Review.
So I’d say it’s not a satire. If one chooses to disbelieve the unattributed Ryan quotes about Noonan and the Stench et al. that’s one thing, but I don’t think it’s satirical.
The windows don’t need to be open, when you tie him to the roof, just use bad knots.
Krugman referenced it on his NY Times blog:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/death-by-powerpoint-continued/
However, Krugman hedged his bets “if this Politico piece is to be believed…”
Mine too. That piece made my Too-Good-To-Be-True-ometer start pinging like mad, then it went into full three-alarm-fire mode.
I mean, how about this:
Gilligan - that’s just perfect, isn’t it?
Stench/Gilligan 2012!
Still, it’s an indication of where we are that Politico would publish such a satirical piece. If they’re jumping on a Republican’s ass, it’s a safe bet that they expect that the Republican won’t be in a position to return the favor.
And there’s this:
I’m sorry, but you don’t put that sort of thing in a straight news piece.
Maybe it’s like ‘hiking the Appalachian Trail.’
Also meaningful, even in a satirical piece, is the line “Dan Senor, one of Romney’s closest advisers.”
For those with short memories, Dan Senor served in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in the early days of our Iraq misadventure. He was the guy always giving out happy talk to the press about how great everything was going, as Iraq all but went up in flames in the spring of 2004. He was our own Baghdad Bob.
If he said the sun was rising in the east, I’d want to get independent corroboration. I know he’s part of the Romney campaign, but if he’s really one of Romney’s closest advisors, how dumb or crazy is that, really?
100% satirical. Sorta amusing though.