Pence and Nonsense

So, VP Pence flew to Indianapolis to show up at a game he had no intention of staying at to make a BS point about "an event that disrespects our soldiers, etc.". I guess that went better than the last culture war-signifying event he "had" to leave.  But I think the grotesque thing about this was how very obvious his display actually was. He even had the press pool wait while he made his little show because he knew he wasn't going to be that long.

Every bit of it was kind of obvious. The Tweeting of a three year old picture like "Whheee, I love some sportsball!"  Being just shocked that the 49ers, who've had players kneeling since the beginning, were still participating in silent protest. And of course, not having enough time on his actual itinerary to stay for the whole game since he had things to do. Like fundraise for Dana Rohrabacher. I mean--I'm sure VP flights don't take as long as commercial flights, but even straight-through commercial:

And this was not a cheap stunt either--think about the taxpayer-funded flight and the Secret Service coverage and all that...

But of course, the real giveaway that this was just some culture war-signifying was that Donald Trump says it wasn't. He Tweeted:

Just marvelous. You can almost imagine wee Donnie playing hide'n'seek as a youngin', crowing from his hiding spot "You won't find me, because I have the best, biggest, most beautiful hiding space!" He thinks this is brilliant political work, and wants credit!

Of course it's a damn distraction from the mutiny over the Bounty towels, the questions arising from the Tillerson not-quite disavowal of calling Trump a "fucking moron", and who know what all else. The health care reform clusterfuck, the bad jobs numbers and crappy polls. Trump and Pence seem to think that if this display gains a news cycle, we will all forget the other stuff (North Korea? Iran?) and just hate on people taking a knee to protest...

Police brutality and racism. Not the flag, not veterans. Police brutality and racism. Screw Pence and Trump for this game. There are real issues out there that should occupy their time. But this trifling is where they prefer to linger. Lying about honest protesters to make up a BS concern of their own as a distraction. 

UPDATE: And apparently, Trump is still very proud of his stunt in the wee hours of the morning:

"Long planned." A stunt. Just remember who to thank/blame!