Mike Pence struggles to defend the indefensible and please his disastrous boss | Richard Wolffe
It’s rare that something unexpected and unrehearsed crosses Mike Pence’s head. The sitting vice-president is a disciplined performer known to prep for his public moments, in stark contrast to his boss.But as the vice-presidential debate neared its close, with the candidates tackling the challenges of racial justice, a dark object landed on his blanched white scalp.Pence was expressing his faux sympathy for the family of Breonna Taylor, while also condemning the notion that America is systemically racist, when a large fly found the smell of his words as attractive as the brown debris that decorates a dog run.It was that kind of night for Mike Pence: a night to polish the turds of the Trump years.When he’s not serving as a cardboard cutout smiling over Donald Trump’s shoulder, Mike Pence likes to play the role of a genial veterinarian delivering the sad news about your dead pet hamster.Drained of all blood, the sitting vice-president doesn’t need a white coat to lament the nature of the world in front of him. The strained smile on his face is a pained reminder that all isn’t right with the world.Until now, Pence has simply grieved for an America suffering from his fever dreams about the socialist threat. But after four years inside a Trump White House, that suffering looks a little more real, and a lot more deadly.The night did not start well for Pence because it started with the pandemic. What else is there to debate?“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” said Kamala Harris, who consistently played the role of fly paper to the lies that have filled the air for the last four years.Harris pointed out that, according to Bob Woodward, Trump knew about the threat of the pandemic back in late January. “They knew and they covered it up. The president said it was a hoax. They minimized the seriousness of it … Frankly, this administration has forfeited their right to re-election based on this.”“Our nation has gone through a very challenging time this year,” lamented our vice-veterinarian. “But I want the American people to know that from the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of America first.”This will be news to the families of more than 200,000 dead Americans, as well as the White House staff currently struggling with a president spreading a full viral load around the executive mansion and the West Wing.Faced with this storm of excrement, Pence found his refuge hiding behind something he called “the American people”.“When you say what the American people have done over these last several months hasn’t worked, that’s a great disservice to the sacrifices the American people have made,” said Pence, as if his boss was the entire American population rolled into the Covid-filled body of a former reality TV star.“The American people I believe deserve credit for the sacrifices they have made for the health of their family, and their neighbors, our doctors, nurses, first responders.”This kind of piously indignant pabulum is not a new performance for the current vice-president but rather something he perfected as a talkshow radio host in Indiana in the late 1990s. Pence styled himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf” which is just the kind of awshucks deception that is so vital to serving as a cardboard cutout behind Donald Trump’s shoulder.You need a lot of decaf to pretend to be a Christian conservative while fawning over a president who pays off porn stars.Four years ago, Pence’s skills as an un-drugged Limbaugh were evident as he debated Tim Kaine in the vice-presidential encounter that literally nobody remembers from the 2016 campaign. For the record, Kaine came off hot and bothered, while Pence glided through the contest like a winged insect bouncing off the surface of a septic tank.On Wednesday night, Pence faced a very different opponent. Kamala Harris may be a senator, like Kaine, but otherwise the two Democratic veep candidates could not be more of a contrast.Kaine speaks like a Jesuit missionary who became a lawyer, a mayor and a governor. He is as reasonable as he is socially conscious. Harris is a Howard University graduate and career-long prosecutor. She preps hard and she wins cases. Kaine looked like he was suffering while Harris looked like she was having fun.The sad truth of the veep debate is that, much like the job the candidates are auditioning for, the contest isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss. It was FDR’s veep who said that, and – to prove his point – nobody can remember his name.It’s tempting to think that Pence versus Harris is somehow different, like everything else in this year from hell.Pence, after all, led the coronavirus taskforce that prayed away the pandemic so well. No wonder his boss gasped on video, under a heavy coating of orange makeup, “this was a blessing from God.”Sitting behind a couple of Plexiglass barriers, to catch the divine-like virus, Pence had by far the hardest job on stage: to defend both his disastrous record, and to please his disastrous boss.In many ways, this was a three-way contest, between Harris, Pence and Trump. But only Pence cared about the Trump voice in his head. And that astonishingly loud, gasping voice constantly distracted Pence from the contest on stage.It does not take much imagination to conjure up a world in which Pence is sworn into the presidency just before the people kick him out of officeFor starters, Trump – excluded for some weird reason from this TV show – could not shut his mouth on social media for the entire evening. This was of course a repeat performance of his debate with Joe Biden last week. It was also the unfortunate side-effect of large doses of steroids that make him look and feel like the top of a Duracell.Perhaps the incessant yapping was merely the latest sign of presidential insecurity about someone who is a heartbeat away from a Covid-infected septuagenarian’s job. It does not take much imagination to conjure up a world in which Pence is sworn into the presidency just before the people kick him out of office.For that matter, it isn’t far-fetched to worry about Joe Biden’s health either, as this pandemic rips through Washington DC, thanks to the man he’s trying to unseat. This White House is responsible for 34 infected individuals all on its own, it emerged just before the veep debate.When asked the tricky question about Trump’s health – and a possible Pence presidency – the vice-president ignored the subject as carefully as he has ignored the scientific advice on Covid. “Let me say, on behalf of the president and the first lady, how moved we have all been by the outpouring of prayers and concern for the president,” Pence said, on the verge of the most sincere outpouring of concern.Kamala Harris proved, as she has all along, that she was more than equal to the task of appearing presidential – and dodging the pesky questions of a presidential debate. When asked the same question, she pivoted neatly to turn the table back on Trump.Should Biden reveal his health records? “Absolutely,” said Harris. “And that’s why Joe Biden has been so incredibly transparent. And by contrast, the president has not. Both in terms of health records, but also let’s look at in terms of taxes.”In truth, both candidates were equally matched debaters. Pence dodged everything about climate change. Harris dodged everything about packing the supreme court.What was unequal was that Pence had to defend the indefensible: a disastrous and preventable death toll, a collapsing economy and a Covid-infected president.Trailing in every poll in every state that counts, Pence and Trump needed something to change on Wednesday night.They needed Harris to flame out, or seem like a raving revolutionary, or perhaps forget how to speak. Instead she punched and parried, and looked like she loved the spotlight as much as the fly that stuck to her opponent’s skull. More
