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Some Notre Dame students were disappointed when, after working hard for four years, they learned they were about to be gifted with Vice President Mike Pence as their commencement speaker. USA Today reported that When Notre Dame announced that Pence would be the 2017 graduation speaker in March, the student organization WeStaNDFor began brainstorming ways to take a stand. Weeks ago, these students announced that they would stage a walkout at graduation in protest.

At the ceremony on Sunday, Pence started his speech, which was heavy on thoughts about free expression:

Notre Dame is a campus where deliberation is welcomed, where opposing views are debated, and where every speaker, no matter how unpopular or unfashionable, is afforded the right to air their views in the open for all to hear.

Soon after Pence started speaking, about 100 students, in video that popped up on several outlets over the weekend, calmly walked straight out of the ceremony along with their parents. Since college graduation is one of those milestone moments of life, you have to hand it to these grads to give that up in favor of making a significant and well-publicized protest.

Some were not in favor of the protest at the predominantly Catholic university, however. One parent told USA Today, We think its disrespectful. Its so unnecessary. This is a good man who is coming here for graduation. I think better of Notre Dame students that theyd do this kind of thing. Former student body president Bryan Ricketts, on the other hand, told The Indianapolis Star that it was a wonderful show of solidarity.

These Notre Dame students may have felt even more impassioned about speaking up since Notre Dame is located in South Bend, Indiana, the state where Pence was governor for four years. Organizer April Lidinsky of Planned Parenthood and the Indiana Reproduction Justice Coalition told USA Today: We are not protesting their choice of a commencement speaker. We are unwelcoming Mike Pence back to Indiana with the idea that nobody knows Pences record as well as Hoosiers do.

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Notre Dame students walk out on Mike Pence's commencement speech - A.V. Club

As Democrats focus more and more on the possibility that President Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses, many are also asking whether they should place the spotlight on Vice President Mike Pence. After all, Pence has so far joined the rest of the Trump administration in defending the president despite the numerous scandals that swirl around him and continue to get worse. Wouldnt that undermine his credibility if Trump was forced to resign in disgrace and Pence became the 46th president of the United States?

I am reminded of an anecdote by the only other vice president to find himself in this position, Gerald Ford.

Like Pence, Ford was heavily criticized for his public defenses of President Richard Nixon at a time when the walls of the Watergate scandal were starting to close in. Yet when Ford slipped up and told a reporter that he believed Nixon would have to resign but he didnt want anyone thinking he (Ford) had contributed to that resignation, he immediately panicked and realized that he had to keep a lid on his moment of unintentional candor.

This is as good a place as any to examine the similarities and differencesbetween Ford and Pence. Both men are Midwesterners (Ford from Michigan, Pence from Indiana) with extensive political experience and a reputation for being cool-headed and affable. Each one is definitely establishment in terms of their standing within the institutional Republican Party itself, and bothhave avoided developing too many deep personal enmities despite their extensive political careers.

On the other hand, Ford was an ideological moderate (arguably the last GOP president deserving of the term), while Pencewas the most right-wing vice presidential nominee in 40years when Trump picked him. Ford had a squeaky clean reputation, whilePence has a major corruption scandal in his own past and owes his very selection as Trumps vice president to the intervention of former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has since been disgraced (Ford didnt even become Nixons vice president until Nixons initial vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned).

All of this means that, while Ford was well-poised to heal the nation upon inheriting power in 1974 (and his approval ratings were quite high until his controversial decision to pardon Nixon), Pence would likely face more of an uphill battle.

While I have no idea whether Pence, like Ford, believes that his bossis doomed, I suspect that he shares Fords trepidation about being perceived as adding fuel to the fire of the presidents scandals. The reason is obvious: Hed be the major beneficiary if Trump left the Oval Office.

Is Pence in the right for doing this? Maybe.

While its valuable to not be viewed as a Machiavellian schemer, Pence risks swinging too far in the other direction and being perceived as part of the same set of problems that are being created by Trump and Trumpism. If Trumpneeds to resign, Americans will have to turn to Pence to restore faith in the American government. That will not be possible if Pence is viewed as an extension of the corruption that took down Trump, rather than an antidote to it.

When it comes to avoiding that outcome, Pence may be running out of time. Although he has not been personally implicated in any of Trumps scandals, a point is being reached in which continuing to lie on behalf of this president will seem not only willfully obtuse, but downright complicit. One of the reasons Ford was such a great president (an opinion that many historians do not share) is that he was able to set a good example with his personal character. Trump, by contrast, is a president whose personal character is appalling, regardless of whether one believes he engaged in criminal activity you dont have to think he committed sexual assault to be disgusted by his willingness to brag about it, or to think he means what he tweets to think his incessant online sniping is beneath the dignity of his office.

The president is supposed to do more than craft policy. He or she is also supposed to be a role model, someone that we can say embodies the basic decency that we expect from every American citizen. Ford had that quality, even when he was trying to publicly avoid believing the worst about Nixon.

If Pence has that same characteristic, he needs to start showing it and soon.

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What Gerald Ford had that Mike Pence doesn't - Salon

Interesting.

Vice President Mike Pence made headlines earlier this year when it was revealed that he had a very strange policy with his wife. You see, Mike Pence does not believe in having dinner alone with a woman who isn't his wife. Mike Pence doesn't go to parties where alcohol is being served without his wife. Also, and not for nothing, Mike Pence calls his wife "mother."

This is all to say that soon-to-be President Mike Pence is what we like to call "a weirdo." But why is he about this strange, restrictive dinner-slash-party policy life? Well the easy answer would be that he and his wife are both evangelical Christians and therefore want to ensure that they never feel tempted by the sins of the flesh (at least if that flesh belongs to anyone else). Open and shut case, right?

Wrong. On Thursday night, Mike and Karen Pence went to Montana to campaign with Greg Gianforte. Also there was Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and at one point in the festivities he and Karen decided to have a little dance, while Mike looked on.

The strict rules. The weird pet names. Here's a theory that makes sense: They're not because Mike Pence is super religious or sexist. No, they're because he's a cuck in a Domme/sub relationship with his wife-slash-mistress-slash-"mother." And good for him! The cuckold lifestyle is nothing to be laughed at. No matter how many times the alt-right tries to make it an insult, I don't think there's anything wrong with someone embracing whatever kink gets them there, provided that everyone is a consenting adult. And Mike, Karen, and Ryan are all consenting adults. So who cares if Mike and Karen need another man to manhandle her to get themselves going? They seem to be having fun, so I'm happy for them.

And oh man, I'm sure he's going to enjoy giving up the power in the bedroom even more once Trump has been impeached.

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Mike Pence's Wife Danced With Another Man as Mike Pence Watched Helplessly - GQ Magazine

New York Times

A Conservative Christian College Protest of Mike Pence New York Times GROVE CITY, Pa. On Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence will give the commencement address at Grove City College, the small Christian institution in Western Pennsylvania where I am a junior. A few years ago, Mr. Pence would have been a ... and more »

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A Conservative Christian College Protest of Mike Pence - New York Times

From the Michael Flynn scandal to James Comey's firing, Vice President Pence has repeatedly had his official statements defending the Trump administration contradicted - sometimes by the president himself. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Mike Pence would like you to know that Mike Pence is not involved in any of this. At least that appears to be the message coming from Pences allies, and perhaps the vice president himself, as the Trump White House reels from a series of interlocking scandals that threaten all manner of political peril, even potentially an impeachment or resignation that could make Pence the president of the United States.

All of a sudden were seeing a wave of articles in which anonymous sources close to Pence tell reporters that hes completely out of the loop, to use the phrase that then-Vice President George H.W. Bush uttered so memorably when claiming his innocence in the Iran-Contra scandal. But can we believe it? And even if its true, isnt that nearly as much of an indictment of Pence?

Lets begin with this report from NBCs Vaughn Hillyard:

Vice President Mike Pence has been kept in the dark about former National Security Adviser Mike Flynns alleged wrongdoing, according to a source close to the administration, who cited a potential pattern of not informing the vice president and calling it malpractice or intentional, and either are unacceptable.

Nobody tells him anything! How can he possibly have any culpability for administration wrongdoing when hes barely involved in any of this running-the-government stuff? Sources close to Pence would also like you to know that Pence was not consulted about the decision to bring on Flynn as the national security adviser in November. I barely know the guy, I tell ya.

Youll recall that Flynn was supposedly fired because he told Pence that he didnt discuss the potential easing of sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he and the ambassador talked multiple times during the campaign, a lie that Pence then repeated to the press. This affront to Pences honor was so profound that President Trump had no choice but to give Flynn the boot. But thats not all.

Flynn was paid half a million dollars to lobby on behalf of Turkey while he was advising the Trump campaign, and in January, on the advice of his lawyer, he retroactively registered as the agent of a foreign government. Though Flynn informed the Trump transitions legal team of this fact, Pence says that no one told him, despite the fact that he was in charge of the transition.

Pence claimed in March to have just found out about Flynns work for Turkey. Yet Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent Pence a letter on Nov. 18 going into considerable detail about Flynns Turkey connection. As of yesterday, Pence was standing by his assertion that he only learned about it in March.

As leader of the transition, it was Pences job to make sure that thingssuch asappointing a national security adviser with troubling ties to foreign governments didnt happen. So his defense in the Flynn matter comes down to: I was doing a terrible job leading the transition and had no idea what was going on.

That then brings us to the matter of FBI Director James B. Comeys firing. Like other administration officials, immediately after the firing Pence went to reporters and claimed that Trump decided to fire Comey because he was following the recommendation of the Justice Department, offered in the form of a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. Or, as Pence put it:

The President took strong and decisive leadership here to put the safety and the security of the American people first by accepting the recommendation of the deputy attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI.

We quickly learned, however, that Trump intended to fire Comey all along. Trump said so in an interview with NBC, and Rosenstein confirmed it to senators yesterday when he told them that he was instructed to write the memo after being told that Comey would be fired.

So the initial White House line was a lie, which was only corrected once Trump blurted out the truth. Did Pence know? I refer you to this Politico article from a week ago:

Pence, who hasnt assumed the traditional role of power player in the White House but is liked by many, signaled support for the decision [to fire Comey], said one adviser to the president.

Pence knew this wasnt about Rosenstein writing a memo, the president seeing it and suddenly deciding to fire Comey, said this person. He knows better than that.

Pence allies on Wednesday said the vice president was merely pointing to the factual turn of events: Rosenstein sent a memo on Tuesday recommending Comeys dismissal, Attorney General Jeff Sessions seconded the opinion and Trump made the move. Pence had not specifically addressed who initiated the whole process, one noted.

In other words, if you parse Pences words carefully enough, you can come up with an interpretation in which he was being technically accurate despite giving an intentionally misleading impression. Thats what we call leadership, I guess.

Lets recall that Pence, with 12 years in Congress and four as governor of Indiana, was supposed to be the steady hand that would guide Trump through the ways of Washington and the complexities of governing. According to at least some reports, the two men are in regular communication (Lobbyists who set up meetings between Pence and their clients must warn them that the vice president may be an hour and a half late or have to leave after 10 minutes because Trump is constantly calling him into the Oval Office to confer with him.) But if his job was to keep things working efficiently and effectively, hes obviously failing.

And now Pence has another priority. Anyone who has gone to work in this administration risks being tainted with its excesses, its incompetence and its corruption. No one is more at risk than Pence, who plainly harbors presidential ambitions of his own and might even become president without having to run for the job. So the steady narrative coming from Pence associates that he has nothing to do with the parade of horrors issuing from the administration could be an attempt to inoculate him for some later date when he has to stand before the voters on his own. Sure, I was there, he may say, but I really wasnt involved with that catastrophe.

If Pence thinks that argument is going to fly, hes got another thing coming.

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Mike Pence wants us to believe he's innocent. Don't buy it. - Washington Post (blog)