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Well, he had his moment. Ever since he presided over the certification of the president's win on January 6, 2021, Mike Pence has made a life's work out of scarpering. He's always had hands like a hippo when it comes to politics, so he has absolutely no chance of running the double game of capitalizing on his big moment while still observing general omerta on behalf of his former boss. He doesn't have the finesse for that play. Maybe nobody does; but in Pence's case, it's like watching a toddler juggling chainsaws. As we learned on Monday, when Pence decided to fight a subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith. From CNN:

Yes, friends, Mike Pencewho for four years was our only vice president and who already has written about the events of January 6 in his widely unread memoiris arguing that he is covered by a privilege derived from the legislative branch, while his former boss is arguing he's protected by a privilege from an entirely separate branch. (How testifying about the events that led up to calls for his lynching qualifies as either "speech or debate" is a mystery to me.) There is absolutely no way this ploy should get any run from any judge who isn't asleep or dead. A while back, conservative former Judge J. Michael Luttig shredded Pence's strategy in The New York Times. Luttig was particularly good at dismantling Pence's claim that the subpoena was "unprecedented." Of course it is, Luttig notes, because the previous presidency* was.

The saddest thing about this situation is that I believe Pence is going through all these legal gymnastics partly to keep alive his prospects for 2024, which approximate those of Marianne Williamson, Lady Gaga, and Trigger. The moment he did his duty, he doomed himself in any future Republican primary. His GOP elephant is wandering the landscape with a bullet in its brain, waiting to fall over for good. And hardly anyone will notice.

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.

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Mike Pence Fights Special Counsel Subpoena for Jan. 6 Testimony