Photo by Toby Alter.

Yesterday, we reported that Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan asked the Obama administration to provide money from the stimulus package to Wisconsin clean energy organizations in 2009.

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We regret to announce that the report was in error. Today, Ryan told a reporter in Ohio that he’d never requested stimulus money.

Rep. Paul Ryan told a Cincinnati television station in an interview airing on Thursday that he “never asked for stimulus” money made available by the Recovery Act, contradicting documents that show he advocated for Wisconsin companies that were seeking funds.

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“I opposed the stimulus because it doesn’t work, it didn’t work. It brought us deeper into debt. It was about $1.1 trillion when you add the borrowing cost, it put us deeper in debt and further out of work,” Ryan told WCPO in an interview. …

Ryan similarly denied requesting stimulus money in a 2010 interview with WBZ’s Nightside with Dan Rea, The Boston Globe reported.

Here’s the clip, via ThinkProgress. Jump to the 3:50 mark.

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So there you have it. Despite this letter …

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[protected-iframe id=”5b64aacf893adf89d474b72e97d6127a-5104299-36375464″ info=”http://www.scribd.com/embeds/102957773/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll” width=”470″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]

… which is on Paul Ryan letterhead and signed “Paul Ryan, Member of Congress” and dated October 7, 2009, and which begins, “I am writing to express my support for the Energy Center of Wisconsin’s grant application for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Energy Training Partnership Grants,” Mr. Ryan says he did not make such a request, and therefore he didn’t.

Since no one who has presented the appearance of a straight-shooting opponent of government spending and is now running to be the vice president of the United States would ever misrepresent or lie about past positions that appear hypocritical, we can only assume that the letter above is an elaborate forgery posted to the web long before Ryan was tapped by Mitt Romney.

We regret the error.

Update: Ryan says it was an accident or something.