Politico has an article called “Paul Ryan’s Voting Record: Big-Spending Conservatism.” My favorite part is the statement by Amy Kremer, who chairs the Tea Party Express. I’ll take it apart a bit.

I think that he’s somebody who’ll stand up and accept responsibility for previous actions.

Translation: When he’s cornered, he’ll probably issue the typical mealymouthed apology for his big-spending ways. That customary and meaningless political gesture is good enough for the Tea Party Express.

Ryan’s terrible votes are anomalies, Kremer suggests. So his anomalies involve the biggest and worst pieces of spending legislation, and this is all right because he’ll “accept responsibility” for blowing Americans’ money?

More importantly than that, he knows that we’re in serious financial trouble, and he has a grasp on the big picture all the way down to the little details.

He has a grasp of our situation down to the little details, yet he proposes a budget that doesn’t do any cutting. (FOX News: “Fact Check: Ryan Budget Plan Doesn’t Actually Slash the Budget.”)

There is no perfect politician. There are many of them that have had votes that we aren’t happy about. But we were in a different time period then, and those votes are actually what led to this movement being formed.

I’m not sure what “we were in a different time period then” is supposed to mean. I think it means, “Don’t ask me why I’m happy to see on the GOP ticket a guy who in the past did the exact opposite of what I’m saying we should do now. Things were, um, different then.”

But I really like the comment that “those votes” — i.e., the bad votes all politicians have, so why single out poor Paul Ryan? — “are actually what led to this movement being formed.” So really, we should be thanking Paul Ryan.

There’s the Tea Party Express for you.