Paul Ryan received the ultimate put-down this morning from the venerable New York Times. Its lead editorial called him a hollow-headed poseur. Specifically, the Times concluded that the House majority leader's mind is filled with nothing but "stale conservative dogma." The occasion for this unprecedented attack was Ryan's failure to create a winning effort on healthcare or Trumpcare as it came to be called.

Backhanded praise

The Times reviewed many reasons it felt Ryan was lacking but concluded with a back-handed compliment. His "dreadful legislation" was credited with producing a surge of grassroots town hall protests, an indication that our democratic system may work after all.

Ryan has chosen not to respond to this yet, reserving his morning tweets for a series of professions on unending loyalty to Israel and the following revelation. He is completely behind the president's forthcoming but already heavily-criticized executive order killing Obama's environmental actions. This implies that he is hell-bent on avoiding any reminders of the healthcare fiasco.

Mr. Ryan is confident that the way to innovate and create jobs is to open up more coal mines, build more cars and encourage more fossil fuel production.

This, he says, is standing up for the American worker. This seems on a par with the thinking in his discredited health-care bill.

Antiphonal response

The response to this from Democratic critics is that the old jobs are not coming back and there is no future in fossil fuels when solar and wind appear to be joining with clean technology to command the future.

The actual story seems to be that there is a slow but accelerating movement to sustainable solutions and that any jobs will be in the new sector, not in what was once dominant.

Does Ryan have a political future?

If Ryan has actually been resized by the debacle of his failed health effort, what is his future?

It might as the tweet below suggests depend on whether Trump can defeat him for full control of the GOP.

Ryan is said to be on thin ice. His ineffectiveness is noted on all sides. And now we have the specter of Trump. Only now it is not the vulnerable president about to be impeached but the stalwart adventurer who conquers as he goes. Will Ryan be his next victim?