A Pence Worth Of Courage Isn't Much

It's your very cowardly Sunday show rundown!

Mike Pence has always been a vacuous, textbook example of an insincere politician. (We could link you to the many times Wonkette has written about this.) In one very brief instance on January 6 2021, Pence made the barest minimum decision when he did his job to certify the election of President Joe Biden. But ever since then, the political media has overpraised him like an exhausted parent cheering their toddler's first shit on a training potty.

Thus, here we have Pence, appearing on ABC's "This Week" with Jonathan Karl, getting 30 minutes in his deluded hope he will become the Republican Party presidential nominee.

It only took one question from Karl regarding the possible indictment/arrest of Trump for Pence to show what a coward he is and fall right in line with the rest of the Republican Party.

PENCE: Well first let me say, I'm taken aback at the idea of indicting a former president of the United States, at a time when there's a crime wave in New York City, that -- the fact that the Manhattan D.A. thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority, I think is, just tells you everything you need to know about the radical Left in this country. [...] It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here. And I, for my part, I just feel like it's just not what the American people want to see. [...]

Never mind that this investigation has been years in the process, including during Pence's vice presidency, and leads back to one of the many criminal investigations started during the Mueller investigation before it was referred to the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

Pence, ever the spineless weasel, has absorbed the Republican talking points and faux shock while also sprinkling some coded bullshit about "blue states."

PENCE: [...] It's a -- the last five years Democrats have been dismantling tough criminal justice in the city of New York. Families are paying the price and yet this is what we get. [...]

Reminder that Indiana's violent crime rate is 382.3 per 100K and homicide rate is 9.7 per 100K versus New York's violent crime rate of 350.5 per 100k and homicide rate of 4.7 per 100K , respectively. That's not even counting the looser gun laws that allow 21 percent of the guns confiscated in Chicago, which the Right is "so concerned about," to be traced back to across the border in Indiana (the real border crisis?).

Pence should keep blue states' names out of his fucking mouth. 

Karl asked about Trump basically calling for "protests" again, despite the last time he did leading to January 6. So did Pence, remembering the fear and anger he's mentioned about that day , condemn this?

PENCE: Well Jon, the American people have a constitutional right to peaceably assemble -- and express their …

KARL: Absolutely, but to have a former president calling on people to protest a -- a -- a -- a justice proceeding.

PENCE: The frustration the American people feel about what they sense is a two-tiered justice system in this country, I think -- I think is well founded but -- I -- and -- I believe that people understand that if they give voice to this, if this occurs on Tuesday, that they need to do so peacefully and in a lawful manner. That the violence that occurred on Jan. 6, the violence that occurred in cities throughout this country in the summer of 2020, was a disgrace. [...]

Nope! Mike "I almost was murdered on January 6" Pence instead made a false equivalence to Black Lives Matter/George Floyd protests like a common Dan Bongino or Tucker Carlson. It's also rich to hear about a "two-tiered justice system" from the same party that want J6 insurrectionists freed, but arrest/murder people over routine traffic stops or actually peacefully protesting. The caucasity never seizes to be tragically hilarious.

Pence also tried to distance himself from the crime Trump will be charged with, the election violating payments to Stormy Daniels, but Karl corrected the timeline for him.

KARL: But you say he's a former president possibly about to be indicted and it's unprecedented. Aren't his actions unprecedented? I mean we never saw a presidential candidate give $130,000 to a porn star to keep her from — from talking. I mean, these are unprecedented actions.

PENCE: Well Jon, I — as you know, those -- those events transpired before I even joined the national ticket and so I can't — I can't speak to the merits of the case.

KARL: Well, the payoff happened just two weeks before the election.

PENCE: But I can't speak to the merits of the case. [...]

Pence also led the transition team once they were elected, so he was very much involved at the time. He probably led the transition as well as he did the Coronavirus Task Force's slowed response, though.

But no other moment shows Pence's cowardice more than Karl giving him the most unequivocally easy chance to condemn Trump's actions on January 6 and Pence instead doing his best Susan Collins impression. 

KARL: I mean, he's effectively justifying or excusing the actions of people who were, who were calling for you to be hanged.

PENCE: There was no excuse for the violence that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and I'll never diminish it as long as I live. But look I -- the president's wrong. He was wrong that day and …I had actually hoped that he would come around in time[...]

Still defending Trump while comparing January 6 to peaceful protests have already shown you diminish the actions on that day, Pence.

But Mike Pence is still the same douche who turned in his frat brothers for having a keg to university officials for personal gain. The difference is Pence won't gain anything from his shamelessness.

Have a week.