In an astonishing barrage of mass stupidity, media interviews of Mike Pence occasioned by publication of his book “So Help Me God” have concentrated on his January 6th experience and avoided his outrageous four years as sycophant in chief to Trump.

Leading off the media massage of the former vice-president, David Muir of ABC News in a highly touted “first” interview let Pence get away with self-abasing drivel about prayer moving him to disobey the command to not certify the 2020 election even though it would be hurtful to “my friend.”

This is the “friend” who nearly caused the death of Pence, his wife and his daughter, a capitol mob objective buttressed by a well-timed Trump tweet that Pence freely admits.

Follow-up was out the window in Muir’s fawning interview.

Muir was outdone by that journalistic tiger Jake Tapper in an appalling “town meeting” on CNN in which Tapper let Pence spin on for a full hour of unadulterated BS. Tapper, a master at follow-up, was defanged during this encounter, perhaps in deference to new CNN wazir Chris Licht and his edict to anchors to tone down political assertions.

This pattern was continued in other Pence interviews on other networks.

Pence has the ultimate arch look and delivery. He pauses before each answer, puts his head to one side, and nods to show himself as if in deep thought. A little bit like a Talmudic scholar except this guy is not a Jew.

In two election campaigns and for four years as vice president he lent a note of evangelical piety to a reality-TV star who bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, as pointed out in the New York Times’s scathing review of his book. This religiosity pervaded his answers in the interviews selling the book.

He “prayed for wisdom” on January 6th when the notion that the Vice President can undo an election needs no condemnation by the deity. It’s Government 101.

Most galling in the interviews was the avoidance of references to Pence’s dismal record on vital issues as if January 6th defined him and nothing else mattered.

Pence has:

  • sought to defund Planned Parenthood
  • criticized comprehensive sex education
  • opposed efforts to expand LGBTQ rights as a Governor and a member of Congress
  • said that “homosexuality is incompatible with military service”
  • voted against the creation of Medicare Part D and the Affordable Care Act
  • voted against FDA regulation of tobacco products
  • opposed birthright citizenship
  • supported the privatization of Social Security
  • written in an op-ed that “global warming is a myth”
  • claimed that there was “no evidence of any hate crimes occurring against individuals for gender identity”

In the news business, cablenets and networks have a right to cover newsworthy events such as Pence on January 6th.

But fairness requires that interviews in which Pence seeks to make money on his book should also address his behavior as a Trump apologist who sat like a throw pillow throughout Trump’s presidency and who believes that progress is the root of all evil.