Dear lord, where were his handlers?
In the firestorm that has erupted over SB 101, and in a ham-handed effort to ameliorate the immense economic damage he and his party have inflicted on the state, Governor Mike Pence took to a Sunday talk show, with disastrous results.
According to Daily Kos (and multiple members of my family who watched):
In the annals of damage control that did more harm than good, Indiana’s Gov. Mike Pence has truly set the new standard. Appearing on today’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” to defend and “clarify” Indiana’s new right to discriminate law that he eagerly signed last week, Pence—and this is putting it kindly—crashed and burned.
Six times Stephanopoulos asked if, under the law, it would be legal to refuse service to gay customers and six times Pence refused to answer. And when asked outright if “you [Pence] think it should be legal in the state of Indiana to discriminate against gays or lesbians … it’s a yes or no question,” Pence’s astonishing (and eye roll-inducing) answer was, “Hoosiers don’t believe in discrimination.” So there you go.
And while Pence continued to peddle the notion that he’d support efforts by the Indiana legislature to “clarify” their new license to discriminate, when asked if making the LGBT community a protected class would be considered, Pence said no, that he wouldn’t push for that, that it’s not on his agenda and that it’s “not an objective of the people of the state of Indiana,” and then flat-out said, “We’re not going to change the law” and that “I stand by this law.”
I was actually looking forward to a Pence bid for higher office, stocking up on popcorn in anticipation of watching our “Not ready for prime time” Governor embarrass himself on the “circuit.” But in this context, his persistent cluelessness is doing incredible economic damage to my city and state.
This, children, is what happens when grownups don’t participate in the political process.
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