House Speaker Paul Ryan said he will not run for re-election.
Page one Washington Post headline:
Ryan to exit, adding to GOP hurdles
Fiscal hawk leaves behind tax cuts, mushrooming deficit
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Editorial page:
Mr. Ryan Surrenders
Slow to take the Trump phenomenon seriously, and then unwilling or unable to confront it effectively, Mr. Ryan now exits, a diminished figure.
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Columnist E. J. Dionne Jr.:
Ryan’s curdled idealism
Paul D. Ryan started his political life hoping to be the champion of a sunny, forward-looking conservatism. He will step down from the House speakership as the personification of conservatism’s decline.
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Columnist Karen Tumulty
The fall of the House of Ryan
On moral ground, the speaker has capitulated even more of who he was.
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Columnist Dana Milbank
Capt. Ryan abandons ship
Shortly after assuming the speakership, Ryan, a promising young leader, made the mother of all miscalculations: He supported Donald Trump for president, reasoning that he could not remain speaker if he opposed Trump.
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Columnist Megan McArdle
Don’t be so glad to see Ryan go
His replacement is likely to be less reasonable, less broadly liked, and less interested in policy than the sound of their own voice. They’re likely to be someone who is desperately interested in the prestige of the office, rather than someone willing to sacrifice from their own interests to party and country.
They’re likely, in other words, to be an ordinary politician. Paul Ryan wasn’t, even if he wasn’t always as extraordinary as we might have wished.
Here’s very good background on Ryan and the speakership from Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report.
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