And speaking of Romney’s team, his VP choice has added a whole new meaning to the term ‘running mate’. Paul Ryan has just admitted he shaved more than an hour off his best marathon result when claiming he had clocked in at ‘two-hours, fifty something’. Ryan’s actual time in the only marathon he ever ran, back in 1990, was 4:01 – far short of the professional-level performance he boasted.
In admitting his dishonesty, Ryan said he had ‘exaggerated’. This word comes from the Latin exaggerāre, which means ‘to magnify’. Considering he claimed a shorter and not longer than actual time, this Latinism isn’t quite precise. May I suggest a shorter Anglo-Saxon verb? You know, the one that starts with an ‘l’.
Admittedly, Ryan isn’t the first politician to use his phoney athleticism as a key to people’s hearts. The stratagem has served the likes of Mao and Putin well, so Romney’s boy finds himself in good, if not unimeachably democratic, company.