Is Paul Ryan a "scumbag" for lying about his marathon time?

That's the sort of thing lawprof Tung Yin is seeing on Facebook. 

He's assuming it's a lie, because how can you misremember something like that? On the other hand, why would you lie about something that's not going to be believed and therefore is only going to make you look bad?

But these people who are excoriating Ryan for lying about sports... what did they say about Bill Clinton back in the old lying-about-sex days? Yin has 3 reasons why Clinton's lie was worse, and I think it obviously was.

So does that mean people who excused Bill Clinton need to shut up about Paul Ryan's marathon time? I have 3 answers:

1. You're never going to get people to stop characterizing the evidence to help or hurt whomever they are inclined to help or hurt. Like a semen stain on a blue dress, it has permeated the fabric of our politics.

2. Bill Clinton was cornered and compelled to speak. His lie was self-defense under attack, and he was trying to keep his presidency from collapsing because of something only tangentially related to the presidential enterprise. Paul Ryan volunteered information, boasting about something that wasn't true in an effort to win our favor. Very different motivations, and we should judge them with particularity and with a subtlety beyond crude epithets like "scumbag."

3. Paul Ryan is currently running for Vice President, and we need to examine him from all angles. He'd better be great, regardless of whether somebody else is less great. Bill Clinton's Lewinsky debacle occurred long ago (though it retains currency to the extent that his party, especially at a convention where it will preen about its service to females, employs him as a mouthpiece*).
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* Yes, I did intend to put that image in your head.