By the time you read this article we will both know who won the Alabama special Senate election; I am writing it on Special Election Day morning. However, today’s posting is not really about that race; it is mainly about Vice President Mike Pence. Let’s explore.
As Robert Mueller’s investigation ascends the hierarchy of the Trump administration Pence’s involvement along with Trump’s comes more into focus. Pence was a late comer to the campaign and (in my opinion) not among its inner circle pre-election. However he was (at least on paper) head of the transition and was in the room for a lot of discussions and decisions. He may have had limited involvement in the crimes, but he was certainly part of the cover up.
If you are very hard right wing and motivated mainly by religion (at least one of the GOP’s preferred religious denominations) Mike Pence is your sort of guy; or at least that is the part he plays on TV. By my observations over many years he is all images and no substance! He is a hypocrite who masquerades as a caricature that will please the religious right.
Pence is famous for not allowing himself to be alone with a woman other than his wife. I understand “Lead us not into temptation” but if you aspire to be the President of the United States one of the requirements is that you have self-discipline. In America, (at least for the last 97 years anyway), we strive to treat women as equal human beings to men. How can women do their job if they are under “gender restrictions” as to what meetings they can attend?
Our first clue during this campaign was Pence’s acceptance of the Veep slot on a ticket headed by Donald Trump. Pence was in jeopardy of not being reelected as Governor of Indiana; a spot he had left the House to take in order to bolster his resume for a presidential run. In fact, speculation was that he would throw his hat into the 2016 ring (or jump on the clown car) for the top spot until the repercussions of his disastrous “religious freedom protection act” backfired on him in Indiana. He was severely damaged goods and the Trump offer was a lifeline. If Trump lost (as all projected) Pence would be the heir apparent going into the 2020 GOP primary. If Trump won he would be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and the heir apparent in either the 2020 or 2024 contest. That was an irresistible deal for an ambitious but amoral politician.
Next came the aftermath of the Access Hollywood tape. When Pence’s behind the scenes maneuver to take over the top spot failed he stayed on. He was not about to put principles (assuming he had principles in the first place) ahead of opportunity.
He has been a constant defender of Trump’s in what can only be characterized as lies. In fact he has endured Trump’s mockery to stay in the “pounce position”. Trump has been known to ask visitors who stopped by to see the Vice President on their way to the Oval Office, “Did Mike make you pray with him?”
That brings us to the Alabama special Senate election to fill the unexpired term of current Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump decided that he couldn’t afford to lose the seat to Democrat Doug Jones so he endorsed Republican Roy Moore despite credible accusations against Moore that he molested children. (I guess Moore likes his women a bit younger than Trump does.) Trump went so far as to record a robocall for Moore and Pence obediently followed suit. Prior to the child molestation accusations Moore (who also hides behind religion) had a record of disobeying the law for which he was twice removed from the bench along with rhetoric that was racist and contrary to Christian principles of all God’s children and the least among us.
I’m not a youngster and back in the day, (as the kids say), I enjoyed watching All In The Family. It was a TV show that featured the character Archie Bunker who was the stereotypical racist, chauvinist, xenophobe, homophobe and anti-Semite. (This was pre 9/11 and it wasn’t yet fashionable among that crowd to be an Islamophobe.) Archie proudly bragged that his lawyers were from the firm of Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz. As she concluded the introduction of her husband Monday night, Mrs. Moore informed the audience that one of their lawyers was a Jew as if that proved that they were not anti-Semites. My advice to Mrs. Moore is that if you don’t have anything intelligent to say you should remain quiet.
This is the kind of guy Mike Pence is supporting in an effort to help his personal cause. Let’s just hope that Robert Mueller gets Mike Pence as well as Donald Trump removed from office and the political scene. Both just care about themselves and neither reflects American values.
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