Mike Pence 'Denounces' David Duke But Can't Say He's 'Deplorable,' Since That's A Hillary Word

How can anyone call these good decent Americans deplorable?

Gov. Mike Pence has had it up to here with Hillary Clinton slandering ordinary, hard-working Americans just because they may happen to think white people are an endangered ethnicity or that women need to be kept in their place, because darn it, you just don't go calling half of America "deplorable." Or if half of Americans actually supported Trump, then it would be a quarter of Americans, but you'd have to subtract those under 18 and the convicted felons and the people who can't vote because of GOP voter restrictions, but you get the idea. And in an interview with CNN's useless anchormannequin Wolf Blitzer, Pence added he's also sick and tired of peoplesaying David Duke is a prominent Trump supporter simply because David Duke supports Trump and is prominent:

Mike Pence declines to call Donald Trump supporter David Duke "deplorable" https: //t.co/D6fuQRolmg   https: //t.co/S1nfCf8Iyy 

— CNN (@CNN) September 12, 2016 

I'm not really sure why the media keeps dropping David Duke's name. Donald Trump has denounced David Duke repeatedly. We don't want his support and we don't want the support of people who think like him.

We remember how eager Trump was to denounce David Duke and white supremacists, at least if someone would please give him a list of who these "white supremacists" are, because he'd never really heard of them, honestly. Pence, sitting right across from Blitzer, at least didn't pretend he couldn't hear the question because he had a faulty earpiece.

Blitzer then asked if, since Duke is such a nasty fellow the campaign has repeatedly denounced, would Pence agree that Duke is somehow "deplorable," maybe? No way was Pence going to fall for that Big Media Gotcha, because to call Duke "deplorable" would somehow make Hillary right, and she can never be right: "I'm not in the name-calling business, Wolf, you know me better than that."

Then it was time for Pence to pretend astonishment at Clinton's disparagement of the views of a subset of Trump supporters, because is not an attack on one an attack on all (unless you're talking about NATO countries, in which case we need to run the financials)? You just don't go talking about AMERICANS that way, Wolf!

What Hillary Clinton did on Friday night was shocking. I mean, the millions of people who support Donald Trump around this country are not a basket of anything. They are Americans. And they deserve the respect of the Democrat nominee for president of the United States. For her to rattle off this litany of pejoratives was just really shocking, and anyone with that low of an opinion of the American people should never hold the highest office in this land.

Shame on Hillary Clinton for that slur on Americans everywhere, even those in the hoods. It was a pretty impressive deflection from the fact that Trump does in fact have a whole crowd of genuinely awful supporters, and a masterful deployment of the Otter Strategy from Animal House:  

Now, as it turns out, David Duke, that Trump supporter whose support is definitely not wanted (wink-wink), was full of praise for Pence's wise decision not to play into Hillary Clinton's deplorable narrative that folks who simply want to protect their European heritage from the mud people are somehow "bad":

“It’s good to see an individual like Pence and others start to reject this absolute controlled media,” Duke told BuzzFeed News. “The truth is that the Republican Party in Louisiana -- I received the vast majority of Republican votes for United States senator before and for governor before that in my state. The truth is the Republican Party is big tent. I served in the Republican caucus. I was in the Republican caucus in the legislature. I had a perfect Republican voting record. It’s ridiculous that they attack me because of my involvement in that nonviolent Klan four decades ago.”

Indeed, according to Mr. Duke, you know who the really deplorable person is? It's Hillary Clinton, for being a big ol' hypocrite who praised Robert Byrd, another ex-KKK dude. (we have no idea who this "Pense" guy is, thought he sounds thoughtful):

If you want to get all picky about it, Byrd renounced racism and spent his latter years apologizing, while Duke rebranded organized hatred as the "National Association for the Advancement of White People." So there's that. Also, too, as New York magazine noted, Duke tripled down on his racism and anti-Semitism, because that shit sells to a certain portion of Trump's proudly deplorable base:

Happily, by Tuesday morning, official smiling Trumperfluffer and token sane-seeming campaign manager Kellyanne Conway took to the cable news circuit to explain that sure, Pence should have called Duke "deplorable, " if only to escape the bad tricksy media. On CNN's "New Day" program, Conway explained why:

So that -- so that he doesn't get headlines saying, "Mike Pence will not say Donald Trump [sic] is deplorable" and people can get satisfied[.]

After all, the Trump campaign has condemned Duke, once it figured out who he was, and Hillary Clinton also has some truly deplorable supporters, now doesn't she?

"We don't want people like that. It's just, it’s unbelievable," Conway said, going on to ask if Clinton would use the word "deplorable" for imprisoned abortion provider Kermit Gosnell, who was charged with killing three babies who were born alive during the procedure.

"Does she think people saying that, calling cops pigs in a blanket and asking for their death deplorable? I sure do. We can go name after name. I'll sit here between now and Election Day," Conway added.

That's a really fair point, and it isn't undercut at all by the Trump campaign having hired Steve Bannon, one of the darlings of the "alt-right" tribe of neo-Nazi frothers, to work alongside Conway as the campaign's CEO. The very minute Hillary Clinton hires Kermit Gosnell to run her campaign, we'll happily concede the point.

[ Crooks & Liars / Buzzfeed / New York / Politico ]