Pence: It's Now Whether There's Disgrace, It's How Much

What's going to happen tomorrow (Wednesday the 6th, since I'm behind most of you), and how much disgrace will Vice-President Pence bring upon himself?

The answer isn't zero.   

Trump thinks the vice-president can single-handedly overrule the votes of tens of millions of Americans on nothing more than his personal opinion:

The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2021

Of course, he doesn't have that power. The VP is just the envelope opener, who hands them to the counters, who total up the certified electoral votes and announces the winner, who we already know will be Joe Biden. 

Pence, who has been the Brown-noser in Chief for 4 years, is said to be in a politically perilous position, and good for that -- it's all of his own creation, for being...a brown-noser all this time. David Frum of The Atlantic says Pence's career is finished. Let's certainly hope so.

This just in: Pence tries to have it both ways. Because of course he does -- he's Mike Pence.

NY Times: Pence Said to Have Told Trump He Lacks Power to Change Election Result -- A day before he presides over a joint session of Congress to ratify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, the vice president tried to lower the president’s expectations while seeking ways to mollify him.

According to the article:

Even as he sought to make clear that he does not have the power Mr. Trump seems to think he has, Mr. Pence also indicated to the president that he would keep studying the issue up until the final hours before the joint session of Congress begins at 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to the people briefed on their conversation.

One option being considered, according to a person close to Mr. Trump, was having Mr. Pence acknowledge the president’s claims about election fraud in some form during one or more of the Senate debates about the results from particular states before the certification. Mr. Pence will preside over those debates.

Mr. Trump has been cajoling Mr. Pence in public and private to find a way to use his role on Wednesday to give credence to his unfounded claims — rejected by the states and in scores of court cases and backed by no evidence — that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.

The president has told several people privately that he would rather lose with people thinking it was stolen from him than that he simply lost, according to people familiar with his remarks.

Mr. Pence has spent hours with parliamentarians and lawyers in recent days. His allies said they expect him to carry out his constitutional duties on Wednesday.

but

“The way Trump is phrasing it, there’s no merit,” said Edward B. Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State University. “What Trump is asking for is control of the outcome that will lead to him being declared the president. That is definitely not within Pence’s power.”

But Mr. Foley said Mr. Pence would be able to add some “drama to the theater,” if he so chooses. As an example, Mr. Foley said the vice president could present “rival” packages of electoral votes for some states and force Congress to debate both simultaneously.

“We know the end result,” he said, “we just don’t know when we will get there or what procedure we will take to get there.”

If any of this happens, history will see Pence as a milquetoast fool, but above all a traitor to his country, because of course there is no evidence of any fraud, and Pence clearly lacks the courage to say that to the President. And he wants to run for president in 2024. How's he going to stand up to any foreign leader who's looking to bamboozle him? I think David Frum is right. Americans don't want a weasel for president.