[NOTE: The Wall St. Journal is paywalled to the eyelids, so this first clip is a quote of a quote from a week ago without a link, but I’m confident it’s accurate. It was written as speculation about the fragility of the narrow incoming Republican majority (about half a dozen) that will occupy the House of Representatives as of January.
The irony here is that it’s the outgoing lame-duck Democratic majority that’s now feeling the sharp point of the Fickle Finger of Fate: Democratic Rep. Donald MacEachin of Virginia died of cancer Monday. His absence abruptly reduces Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House majority from 220 to 219, only six more than the Republicans’ 213.
This vacancy further complicates Pelosi’s task in the last month of her majority’s tenure, when Democrats hope to push through several major bills that will be DOA once the big gavel passes to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (or whoever; watch that space).
As to the other item, it’s a partial exception to a rule of mine, which is not to review books I have not read. That certainly applies to this book, So Help Me God, by former vice president Mike Pence; there’s not enough blockchain crypto left to pay me to wade through even the first chapter. So I won’t review it; though I did take a secondhand look at an unauthorized Pence bio here.
But I’m making a partial exception because another reviewer, Carlos Lozada of the New York Times, was intrepid and strong enough of stomach to read Pence’s whole honking 542-page doorstop. He not only read it, but then produced a substantial, trenchant, yet almost entirely sarcasm-free review. (“Almost,” but justifiably not quite. In one crucial spot, Lozada permits himself a barb that’s gloriously incriminating and apt, if only, as it were, by force of circumstance:)
Lozada: Between Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, and the tragedy of Jan. 6, 2021, while Trump and his allies propagated the fiction of a stolen vote, Pence enabled and dissembled. Describing the outcome of the vote in his memoir, he offers a gloriously exculpatory euphemism, writing that “we came up short under circumstances that would cause millions of Americans to doubt the outcome of the election.” (Circumstances could not be reached for comment.)
Circumstances? Only a chunk of Lozada’s lengthy autopsy is here, but his scalpel is keen and it cuts to the chase and the quick.
The Perils of a Narrow House Majority
Wall Street Journal: “Resignations are typical in any Congress, and at least one House lawmaker has died during every two-year legislative session of Congress during the past two decades.”
“In 2022 alone, Reps. Jim Hagedorn, Don Young and Jackie Walorski died in office. Six other House members resigned, including to take other politically appointed positions. Since 1997, 37 House elected lawmakers have died either in or before taking office.”
“In one instance, Republicans won a slim majority of just one seat in the 1930 elections. But before the 72nd Congress could convene, 14 elected members died, according to House archives. Special elections held to replace them flipped the chamber in Democrats’ favor.”
Lozada on Pence: Feel free to buy the book, but don’t buy the redemption tale just yet. Pence was indeed in the White House to serve, but he served the president’s needs more than those of the nation. In “So Help Me God,” Pence rarely contradicts the president, even in private, until the days immediately preceding Jan. 6. He rarely attempts to talk Trump out of his worst decisions or positions. He rarely counters Trump’s lies with the truth.
Most damning, Pence failed to tell the president or the public, without hedging or softening the point, that the Trump-Pence ticket had lost the 2020 election, even after Pence had reached that conclusion himself. Americans should be enormously grateful that the vice president did not overstep his authority and attempt to reverse the will of the voters on Jan. 6. But you shouldn’t get the glory for pulling democracy back from the brink if you helped carry it up there in the first place. And, so help me God, Pence did just that.
Why wouldn’t Trump — a man Pence invariably calls “my president” and “my friend” — assume that his vice president would help steal the election? Pence had agreed to so much else, had tolerated every other national and personal indignity with that faraway, worshipful gaze.
The irony is that Pence’s record of reliable servility was a key reason he was in position to be the hero at the end. And so the vice president became that rarest of Trump-era creatures: a dedicated enabler who nonetheless managed to exit the administration with a plausible claim to partial credit. If Pence got to do the right thing on Jan. 6, it was because he had done the wrong one for so long. . . .
