"As the former presidents, first ladies, and vice presidents sat together at the National Cathedral on Thursday..."

"'Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that God put me on one of these rows,' Pence remarked. Media coverage scrutinized the small interactions among them, noting Pence’s handshakes with the Trumps and former Second Lady Karen Pence’s refusal to acknowledge either. 'He greeted me when he came down the aisle. I stood up, extended my hand. He shook my hand. I said, "Congratulations, Mr. President," and he said, "Thanks, Mike,"' Pence said. 'You’d have to ask my wife about her posture, but we’ve been married 44 years, and she loves her husband, and her husband respects her deeply.' The very public reunion was far from the only thing on his mind at the funeral. Before joining the Reagan Revolution and becoming a Republican, Pence had voted for Carter and was 'greatly heartened that there was a born-again Christian serving in the White House,'... Backstage at an event in 2015, Pence said he got to thank the 39th president for his service and commended how Carter 'spoke plainly about his faith in Jesus Christ' in office...."

Write Harvest Prude and Kate Shellnutt, in "Mike Pence Shares the First Thing He Said to Trump in Four Years" (Christianity Today).

"Your brain knows bullshit," said Joe Rogan.

"You could kind of bullshit someone for an hour, but... hour two and hour three.... that's when the real you comes out.... How much are you bullshitting the world?...[T]he narrative about Trump has always been that he's bullshitting everybody.... But that's him, that's the, the guy's right there. You could talk to him about everything and anything. He's right there.... Your brain knows bullshit...."

Context (from the full transcript at Podscribe, which I edited a bit for accuracy):

"They never fired one person. They didn't fire anybody having to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban..."

"They should have fired all those generals, all those top people because that was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen. So when somebody does a bad job I fire them. And you take a guy like Esper. He was no good, I fired him. So he writes a book. Another one writes a book. Because with me they can write books. With nobody else can they. But they have done such a poor job. And they never fire anybody. Look at the economy. Look at the inflation. They didn't fire any of their economists. They have the same people. That's a good way not to have books written about you."

From Tuesday night's debate, that's Donald Trump, accepting the consequences of firing people. They write books and get back at you. In that structure of cause and effect, not firing people is a subtle form of censorship, and we the voters ought to notice the silence and think about what we are not hearing.

Esper is Mark Esper, who wrote "A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times." Wikipedia says:

Consider Trump the moderate.

"... Trump is not a movement conservative, not an ideologue outside of core obsessions like trade and immigration, and he no longer has to fear revolts from his right the way he did in the days when he felt the need to pick a religious-conservative Reaganite as his vice president. Glance over the G.O.P. platform, focus on the substance... and you can see outlines of the pitch the moderate version of Trump wants to make to swing voters. I’ll be right-wing on crime and immigration, but I won’t touch your retirement programs. I’ll be anti-woke and pro-patriotism, but I won’t be Mike Pence on social issues. I’ll keep the tax cuts I passed last time, but I won’t necessarily pile on more tax cuts for the rich. I’ll keep America out of unnecessary wars."

I'm reading "From Moderate to Caesarist: 4 Scenarios for Trump 2.0" by Ross Douthat (NYT).

The other 3 versions of Trump are: Trump the doctrinaire right-winger, Trump the imperial president, and Trump the great mobilizer of opposition.

"Regardless of the views that people have about Julian Assange and his activities, the case has dragged on for too long..."

"... there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration and we want him brought home to Australia."

Said Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, quoted in "Julian Assange leaves UK after striking deal with US justice department/It is anticipated the WikiLeaks founder will plead guilty to violating US espionage law at a hearing in Saipan and will be allowed to return to Australia" (The Guardian).

Under the deal, which must be approved by a judge, Assange is likely to be credited for the five years he has already served and face no new jail time....

New York Magazine offers what it says are the top 3 reasons why Kristi Noem is telling us that she killed her dog.

Here's the article, which I wanted to read because I have 3 theories. Let's see if mine are in this "top 3."

No! They are not. The NY Magazine top 3 list is:

Theory No. 1: Kristi Noem is an incredibly bad politician.... 

Theory No. 2: Kristi Noem is trying to impress Trump, and he hates dogs.... 

Theory No. 3: Kristi Noem wants off Trump’s VP shortlist....

Ugh! Poorly done! 

My 3 reasons are all so much better: 

Althouse Theory No. 1: There were witnesses, so the story would almost surely come out in some form eventually, and Noem chose to control the narrative, telling it in her own words, in her book. 

Althouse Theory No. 2: It was a trap to lure coastal-elite people into displaying their arrogance and ignorance. After they have their say, she's predicting, lots of working class people will step up and make fools out of them for failing to understand difficult, down-to-earth farm work and bird hunting.

Althouse Theory No. 3: Noem wanted to counter a stereotype about women, that we are too empathetic and indecisive, and she thought the anecdote about shooting the chicken-killing, person-biting dog showed her fitness to serve as Commander in Chief. 

"And when you have the President of United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers union every day. "

Said Chris Christie, in last night's GOP debate.

Later, from Mike Pence: "I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years."

(From the transcript, at The Pavlovic Today.)

I'm too much of a morning person to live-blog debates anymore, and live-blogging is really hard anyway...

... because if you don't pause, how are you supposed to write about something you just heard when you're supposed to be hearing the next thing they say? You have to let many things roll by unnoticed and you can't be fussy about verbatim quotes. I think if I were ever to try live-blogging again, I'd just forget about quotes and even the substance of what they are saying and just — on the fly — let you know how this and that made me feel.

But something I can do that's much less stressful that might be worthwhile and even kind of fun is to watch the video the next day after and use a transcript to cut and paste key quotes.

So here's the video:

And here's a transcript.

I really thought, at this point, that I was going to go through the entire debate and make a number of posts. I was just going to take little break first. Time passed. 3 hours. I came back to this project, watched the first half hour of the debate. Somewhere around this...

A perfectly good question asked by Jen Psaki, who has a TV show and a written column at MSNBC.

"Could a Trump indictment actually help him politically?"

The headline is good for attracting clicks. It got mine, and I know I'm exacerbating the unwholesome skewing of traffic by linking, but I want to complain that there isn't even an effort to answer the question asked. I guess Psaki brings her presidential press secretary frame of mind to her new job.

The column begins "Don’t freak out" and ends "don’t freak out quite yet."

In between, we're told that Trump can be expected to "weaponize" the indictment for political gain, which just restates the question in the headline. Will the political weaponization of the indictment (if there is one) work? 

There's really nothing more on the topic. A sentence about Trump's poll numbers. A mild quote from Mike Pence referring not to the substance of the indictment but to January 6th — "history will hold Donald Trump accountable." A quote from Chris Sununu:"We’re moving on." As for the effect of criminal charges: "We just don’t know yet." Well, yeah, but where's the analysis? Just "don't freak out" and "Rest assured that I will be following this closely." It doesn't seem like you are.

ADDED: What's really going on here? To say pay no attention to this now means don't talk about it while there's still some time to cry out before it happens. Will the Sunday shows this morning be full of Democrats warning that criminal prosecution is a horrible mistake that will backfire on Democrats (and on everyone else who's keen on stopping Trump)? Or will they all have gotten the memo that we read in Psaki's column: Nothing to see here; the prosecution of Trump is not political, but Trump, if indicted, will politicize it, and we'll just have to wait and see how far that takes him. 

What's the point of Pence if he's going to be crudely disrespectful?

I'm reading "Pence defends joke about Buttigieg 'maternity leave'" (AP). 

Pence was speaking at a roast — the Gridiron Dinner — and said that Pete Buttigieg took “maternity leave.” That was the set up for the joke: “Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression.”

Pence defended himself this way: “The Gridiron Dinner is a roast. I had a lot of jokes directed to me, and I directed a lot of jokes to Republicans and Democrats. The only thing I can figure is Pete Buttigieg not only can’t do his job, but he can’t take a joke.”

That's not consistent with the Pence brand, which is to be relentlessly civil and predictably strait-laced. Even aside from that, it's just plain wrong to claim that a joke is directed at one person when you are using mockery aimed at a group. To say that a gay man is taking "maternity leave" is to mock gay people in general. Why would he want to do that? Also, he's making light of postpartum depression, a mental illness.

If Trump had made these jokes, it would be consistent with his brand. He's a comedian and he steps over the line to shake up the squares. But Pence?! He is the square. If you're the square, be the square. 

"We are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard" — said Donald Trump.

Quoted in "Scenes from a celebration of the same-sex marriage law — at Mar-a-Lago/'We are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard,' Donald Trump told a Log Cabin Republicans gala" (Politico).

Hundreds of guests in tuxedos of all styles — sequined, quilted, velvet — and colorful gowns sipped on Trump-branded champagne and martinis [and]... danced to “YMCA” and “Macho Man”....

Thursday night’s Log Cabin Republicans’ “Spirit of Lincoln” gala in the main ballroom of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beachfront club was a joyous celebration of gay rights....

Throughout the evening, speakers praised Trump for his embrace of the gay community....

I'm reading that because Chuck linked to it in the previous post and said: "I always contended that Althouse was right when she declared (during the 2016 Presidential campaign) that she thought that 'Trump is pro-gay but he’s being cagey about it.'"

Yeah, I did say that, back in July 2016, in the comments section to my post "Donald Trump may think Pence is a safe choice." 

"What, for his part, did Trump really think of his vice president? In one unintentionally revealing anecdote..."

"... Pence relates how he attended the musical 'Hamilton' and, at the curtain, heard one of the cast members issue a statement on behalf of the show expressing anxiety and alarm over the administration’s lack of commitment to protecting a diverse America. 'I wasn’t offended by anything he said,' Pence writes, but Trump 'was outraged — mostly as a New Yorker. "Broadway is almost like going to church," he told me.' When Pence declined to turn the episode into culture-war point-scoring, Trump 'good-naturedly' admonished him: 'You took the high road. I never take the high road.' Somehow one doubts that Trump intended that as a compliment."

From "Mike Pence highlights his heroic hour, and sidesteps the rest/In his memoir, 'So Help Me God,' the former vice president writes of his outrage at the Capitol invasion but is generally soft on President Trump" (WaPo).

Here's my blog post from the time. I was mainly concerned that Mike Pence was put in physical danger.

"In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, former vice president Mike Pence says abortion should be banned nationwide..."

"... and is planning behind the scenes to focus on the issue in the coming weeks, according to advisers.... On Friday, Pence’s organization, Advancing American Freedom, shared a video highlighting that record.... Some Republican strategists called the end of Roe an opportunity for Pence.... 'He just needs an issue set that he can really dig into that’s not about January 6 or Trump or anything,' said Republican strategist David Kochel, who has worked on six presidential campaigns. 'He’s comfortable talking about [abortion],' he added. But Kochel said Trump still has the simplest message to voters about the Supreme Court ruling: 'You’re welcome.'... Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich on Friday disputed that Trump has privately expressed misgivings about overturning Roe.... Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)... said in a recent statement that the state would 'work to expand pro-life protections' but did not chart out specifics.... Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo called for increased support for pregnancy care centers, organizations that counsel people against abortions and provide them with resources..... Nikki Haley... said in a statement that she hopes for 'a renewed commitment from elected lawmakers to support and protect mothers and their pre-born babies.'"

From "Pence leans in on abortion, as Trump, other potential 2024 candidates are more cautious/The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has opened up new fissures offering early clues about the contours of the primary" (WaPo).

"So intent was Pence on being Trump’s loyal second-in-command — and potential successor — that he asked confidants if there were ways he could accede to Trump’s demands and avoid certifying..."

"... the results of the election on Jan. 6. In late December, the authors reveal, Pence called Dan Quayle, a former vice president and fellow Indiana Republican, for advice. Quayle was adamant, according to the authors. 'Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,' he said. But Pence pressed him, the authors write, asking if there were any grounds to pause the certification because of ongoing legal challenges. Quayle was unmoved, and Pence ultimately agreed, according to the book. When Pence said he planned to certify the results, the president lashed out. In the Oval Office on Jan. 5, the authors write, Pence told Trump he could not thwart the process, that his role was simply to 'open the envelopes.' 'I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this,' Trump replied, according to the book, later telling his vice president, 'You’ve betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing.'"

From "Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart, new book says/‘Peril,’ by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, reveals that Gen. Mark A. Milley called his Chinese counterpart before the election and after Jan. 6 in a bid to avert armed conflict" (WaPo).

"[I]t seems that the president simply didn’t want to appear to be abiding by the terms of a deal negotiated by his predecessor."

Mike Pence writes in "Biden Broke Our Deal With the Taliban/It’s a foreign-policy humiliation unlike anything our country has endured since the Iran hostage crisis" (Wall Street Journal).

"Given the smaller number of seditious members in the Senate, McConnell’s task is far easier: Conduct a quick Senate trial; convict Trump and..."

"... ban him from future office; expel Cruz and Hawley; and then vote to censure others who tried to deny voters the president and vice president they chose. McConnell should do these things not because it is the only moral, decent course, but because he is smarter than McCarthy and knows that to do any less would starve his members of financial support and set them up for losses from pro-democracy primary challengers or Democrats. And we know one thing: McConnell is not dumb." 

From "Impeachment is just the start. Republicans must cast off the deadwood" by Jennifer Rubin (WaPo).

Don't misread "smarter than McCarthy." I myself did a double take. That's what I get for skipping right to the end of a column. In context, it's clear that Rubin is talking about House minority leader Kevin McCarthy. 

The headline is screwy. Deadwood?!

Anyway, what you see there shows the problem of starting something. If you do one thing, as soon as you do it, people will say, you haven't done enough. You've got to do one more thing and one more thing.

Me, I liked Mike Pence's letter rejecting the use of the 25th Amendment. He set the tone I like to hear. Maturity, moderation, future-looking optimism, order, working together.... I wish Joe Biden would say something like that. Where is he in all of this anyway?

"What was already shaping up as a volatile final stretch to the Trump presidency took on an air of national emergency as the White House emptied out and some Republicans joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi..."

"... and a cascade of Democrats calling for Mr. Trump to be removed from office without waiting the 13 days until the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. The prospect of actually short-circuiting Mr. Trump’s tenure in its last days appeared remote. Vice President Mike Pence privately ruled out invoking the disability clause of the 25th Amendment to sideline the president, as many had urged that he and the cabinet do, according to officials. Democrats suggested they could move quickly to impeachment, a step that would have its own logistical and political challenges. Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the assistant speaker of the House, said Friday on CNN that the Democrats could get an impeachment vote to the House floor as early as the middle of next week...."

The NYT reports. 

I'd like the Democrats — who have won — to show calm steadiness and grace, not crank things up to higher and higher hysteria! What was the point of dragging old man Biden to the fore and using him — rather than Sanders or Warren — to defeat Trump if not to rope in those of us who just want things to be sensible, moderate, and practical?!

I enjoyed the phrase "a cascade of Democrats" — it could be the collective noun, you know, like "murder of crows" and "exaltation of larks."

"America’s shellshocked politicians regrouped in sombre mood after the broken glass of the Capitol had been swept up and the blood cleaned from the corridors...."

"... determined to resume the work of democracy. The violence of the mob appeared to have instilled a sense of common purpose that has been sorely lacking during the partisan clashes of the Trump years. Senators reconvened at 8pm and after two hours of debate voted by 93 to 6 to reject the call to oppose Arizona’s results. Members of the House came back an hour later and also threw out the rebellion, by 303 to 121. It was emphatic confirmation that President Trump’s fantasy of overturning the election was as dead as his shredded reputation. There were portentous words at the outset from Mike Pence, the vice-president, back in the chair after being whisked to safety by armed guards almost six hours earlier. 'To those who wreaked havoc today: you did not win,' he said. 'Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house.'... James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, then resumed the debate in a more contrite manner from where he abruptly left off while setting out his objections to the results in Arizona. After stating that he believed Joe Biden won the election and all he wanted was a study of claims of fraud, he quickly sat down.... [Defeated Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler said,] 'I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes, however the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider and I cannot now in good conscience object... The violence, the lawlessness and siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent and stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was intended to protect, the sanctity of the American democratic process.'"

From "Mob violence instils sense of common purpose in US Congress after Capitol stormed" (The London Times).

"The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some.... The congressional power to reject electors is reserved for the most extreme and unusual circumstances."

"These are far from it.... President Trump’s lawyers made their case before scores of courts; in every instance, they failed.... My fellow Senator Ted Cruz and the co-signers of his statement argue that rejection of electors or an election audit directed by Congress would restore trust in the election. Nonsense. This argument ignores the widely perceived reality that Congress is an overwhelmingly partisan body; the American people wisely place greater trust in the federal courts where judges serve for life. Members of Congress who would substitute their own partisan judgement for that of the courts do not enhance public trust, they imperil it...."

From Senator Mitt Romney's written statement.

Meanwhile: "Vice President Pence... welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th."

And, from Ted Cruz: "I think everyone needs to calm down.... I think we need to tone down the rhetoric. This is already a volatile situation. It's like a tinderbox and throwing lit matches into it... That’s not helpful ... at a time when we’re pitted against each other. Just relax, and let’s do our jobs... We have a responsibility to follow the law."

AND: Chuck Todd to Ron Johnson: "Stop! You don't get to make allegations that haven't been proven true."

WATCH: @chucktodd to @senronjohnson: "You made an allegation that there was widespread fraud, you failed to offer specific evidence of that widespread fraud, but you're demanding an investigation on ... allegations of widespread fraud."

"Essentially, you're the arsonist here." pic.twitter.com/PtZMSPoWtu

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 3, 2021

Finally! The steaming pile of insect politics I've been waiting for!

I saw that the NY Post hated it — "'SNL’ somehow screwed up the VP debate fly" — but I — an intense fan of the Jeff Goldblum version of "The Fly" — think it's truly great:

 

That guy in the Post objected to the use of Jim Carrey as Joe Biden combined with Jeff Goldblum — characterized it as "this strange, aspiring 1980s East Village performance art piece." I'll just guess he doesn't know the movie "The Fly." How can you have missed "The Fly"? And I mean the Jeff Goldblum "Fly." Nothing against the Vincent Price "Fly." That's also great. But come on, if you're going to review American satire, there's a certain baseline of experience you need to have in your brain. 

Kudos to "SNL"! Every one of the actors did a fine job and the material was even politically balanced. The only thing I'd change is the color of Kate MacKinnon's lipstick. She played the moderator Susan Page in pretty bright red lipstick, but Susan Page had on a color that made me laugh:

Just a little missed opportunity. They perked Susan Page up a bit. And Kate MacKinnon is already way perked up compared to the hilariously dull Susan Page. Anyway... other than that — excellent. Thanks, "SNL"! 

ADDED: Here's the very best thing in "The Fly" — the part about "insect politics" (and by they way, Kate MacKinnon would make a great Geena Davis, if the Geena Davis part had found its way into the sketch):

 

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. You see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh... I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamed he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake... I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay."

("SNL" did not use the "insect politics" material.)