David Ignatius: From the Beginning, Paul Ryan Was the Reluctant Speaker

EXCERPT:

IGNATIUS: “Paul Ryan’s story is a painful one. I was on Capitol Hill yesterday morning when the news came over people’s phones that the announcement was coming. Republicans, even people who had been with Paul Ryan that morning in the House gym, said they were surprised that it was coming now, in this way. As I look at Paul Ryan, you know him better than most people, Joe, just seems to me this was somebody who never really wanted to be Speaker. He was reluctant. He had seen what had happened to John Boehner. He had seen the basic impossibility of controlling and containing a party that was imploding. He wasn’t able to do it. He could never deal with the pressures of his own party. He likes to say his legacy is the tax bill. His legacy I think will be the $1 trillion deficit that we’re going to have by 2020, according to the latest projections.”