Paul Ryan Speech to the Republican National Convention

I loved it.

Ryan is handsome and articulate. He hammered Obama personally and politically, and made stark contrasts between the GOP ticket and the moral bankruptcy of the Obama administration's nearly four years in office. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Ryan Pledges GOP Rebirth":

TAMPA, Fla.—Rep. Paul Ryan took the national political stage Wednesday as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate, giving a televised speech that laid out one of the GOP's sharpest cases yet against a second term for President Barack Obama, and for Republicans as the party of small government.

Mr. Ryan's address to the Republican convention was his introduction to a national audience only now beginning to take his measure as one of the GOP's leading figures and the partner of presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

He blended notes of partisan rancor with personal touches, such as a nod to his taste for rock bands AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, as he tried to build a case that Mr. Obama had hindered the economy and piled on debt.

"After four years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Gov. Mitt Romney," Mr. Ryan told the crowd gathered at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Mr. Ryan's selection heralds the emergence of a new generation of Republican leaders willing to reshape the main pillars of a social safety net that has been in place since the 1960s.

The 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman is the architect of far-reaching legislation to cut federal spending and to overhaul entitlement programs, including a proposal to transform Medicare from open-ended health coverage for seniors into a system in which future beneficiaries buy private insurance, or buy into the traditional Medicare program, with premiums subsidized by the government.

Democrats call it a voucher system that will shift health-care costs to seniors. Mr. Ryan and his allies say the plan will save Medicare from insolvency.

Mr. Ryan didn't shy from his Medicare plan Wednesday. "Medicare is a promise, and we will honor it,'' he said, an effort to blunt Democratic attacks that his plan would undermine Medicare and shift costs to future retirees. "A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare, for my Mom's generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours."

The congressman then blamed Mr. Obama for failing to curb the deficit, wasting stimulus money to revive the U.S. economy during his first year in office and passing a new health-care law that should "have no place in a free country."

Mr. Ryan said the president has shirked responsibility for the sluggish recovery. "College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life," he said.

More at that top link.

Plus, from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Ryan’s Star Turn Shows GOP Ready to Rumble on Medicare."

And see The Other McCain, "COMPLETE TEXT: PAUL RYAN’S SPEECH TO THE GOP CONVENTION."

BONUS: At The Lonely Conservative, "What Are the GOP ‘Pros’ Who Panned the Ryan Pick Saying Now?"