September 3, 2012--Marathon Man

After getting caught in a lie, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan admitted he didn't run a marathon in less than three hours as he claimed in a nationally broadcast interview.

The candidate acknowledged on Saturday that he had misstated his marathon time by more than an hour.

He released a statement correcting the record after Runner's World magazine found evidence he had completed a total of one marathon and finished in just over four hours.

Ryan told radio host Hugh Hewitt last month he had run a "two hour and fifty-something" marathon. That's a pace of less than 7 minutes per mile for the 26.2 mile course--extremely fast for recreational runners. But a time the buff Ryan thought would fit his image of himself.

Outed, Ryan said he should have rounded his marathon time to four hours, not three.

Because it is such an achievement to complete even one marathon, every runner knows his time down to the second. And no self-respecting runner rounds the time down. Certainly not by an hour. And if you do, how do you round your time down to less than three hours when it in fact was more than four hours?

Shame on him.

As chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of the infamous Ryan budget plan, how many other numbers did he round up or round down? We know for sure that he lied about how President Obama cut Medicare by over $716 billion to pay for Obamacare. The truth is that Obama has increased Medicare covergage so that now the prescription drug donut hole (which Ryan voted for) is now closed, saving seniors on average $600 a year.

Someone this loose with numbers and facts isn't worthy of being considered vice presidential material.  As my grandmother used to say, it's the little things that reveal the worth of a person.