Net Goes Nuts Over Beefcake Paul Ryan Pics

Last year, while being profiled as a finalist for Time's Person of the Year issue, Paul Ryan posed for some "beefcake" pictures for the magazine in which he flexed his muscles while lifting weights, while wearing a backwards baseball cap and making doofy faces. Time coyly chose to publish them today, as Ryan's debate with Joe Biden looms. Some of the reaction:

• Writes Dan Amira on Daily Intel: "In December of last year, a time when Paul Ryan must have known that he would be on any candidate's VP short list, Time approached the Wisconsin congressman about posing for a series of intimate weightlifting photos, and he was like, 'Yeah, sure, I can't see why not.' … It's like the mimbo from Seinfeld is running for vice president."

• The Daily Beast wonders if he's running to be "the future vice bro of the United States?" and notes, "Forget Big Bird, check out those big guns."
• The Atlantic Wire's headline: "Paul Ryan Beefcake Photos Released: Abs Remain Elusive." Elspeth Reeve notes that in the photos, Ryan is doing "what high school gym coaches nationwide call 'curls for girls,' bicep curls that make your arms beefy for the ladies but don't really make you stronger or better at sports."
• Mashable rounds up some of the memes that have popped up, including some pretty hilarious altered photos and tweets from "Paul Ryan's Bicep."

Check out the photos for yourself here. (More Paul Ryan stories.)