Today's Political Comment

Just saw the clip of Indiana Governor Mike Pence on with George Stephanopoulos this morning. Pence was arguing that people are misunderstanding his state's new "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" while at the same time refusing to answer the simplest questions about what it means. Pence actually has a good point when he insists, as he did over and over, that laws like this are all over the country and have even been endorsed or signed by folks who now champion Gay Rights. He has a bad point if he's suggesting they all still support them.

Mostly though, Pence proved the Act is indefensible. At one point, he switched over to insisting that Hoosiers are good, good people who would never discriminate. That makes sense like insisting they're good, good people who would never do anything dishonest so the state doesn't need a law against robbing banks or committing murders.

I don't think any of these laws are ever going to reverse the march to full Marriage Equality and other equal rights for L.G.B.T. folks. They'll slow that march here and there and possibly delude a few homophobes into thinking the tide is turning and they can stuff everyone back in the closet. But equal rights are inevitable and I suspect Governor Pence knows that and is just playing to his base. A lot of them were probably thrilled that he wouldn't play the "game" of defending a position with logic and facts against one of them Commie reporters.

A number of articles in the last week about Ted Cruz have made this point: That his positions aren't particularly different from most of his opponents for the G.O.P. nomination. So what he's doing, they say, is trying to define himself as the guy who'll be utterly ruthless in pursuit of that agenda; who won't care if Democrats and Liberals hate him and who will perhaps even be proud of that. Watching Pence today, I sure got the feeling that he's trying to steal a move from the Ted Cruz Playbook.