JANESVILLE, WI—The new owners of one of the few sites of national historical interest here in Janesville wasted no time in defacing the property. “You say ‘deface,’ I say ‘improve,” laughed Claude Aitken.
Last May, Aitken and his husband, Grant Micheaux, bought a venerable two-story brick colonial house without realizing that it was the birthplace of the onetime US congressman and Janesville native Paul Ryan—a name now synonymous with political corruption, scandal, and ruin that brought the nation to its knees.
“There was a time it might have been a selling point, I imagine,” said Aitken. “That was before the tribunals, of course. And long before most people understood what a truly disgusting, treasonous rat of a man he was. Of course everyone knows that now. You can’t even say his name out loud around here anymore. Not that I ever would.”