What’s up with Mike Pence? He’s an adult, a grown man. He has a wife, a daughter, a pet bunny named Marlon Bundo. He probably pays taxes even…maybe. So what’s up with the constant toadying?

During any speech or comments by members of Donald Trump’s administration, they have to divert from the subject at hand to lavish praise on Donald Trump. Usually, the praise is for something imagined or managing a chaos he created. Except Mike Pence doesn’t divert from the subject to toady up to Trump. He diverts from toadying to talk about the subject. Mike Pence is an ass man. He loves the ass.

Mike Pence is an ass-kisser, a toady, bootlicker, suckup, lickspittle, flunky, fawner, sycophant, brown noser, apple polisher (I just learned that one), lackey, lapdog, and a yes man. He is the head zealot of the Trump cult. There are videos of Pence sitting next to Trump at a table, and when Trump moves the glass before him an inch or two, Pence quickly does the same with his eyes on Trump. Somewhere, your teacher’s pet from elementary school is saying, “damn.”

But yesterday during Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, Pence spoke several times. One of those times was dedicated solely to praising Trump and he may have broken his previous record for kissing Trump’s ass. Pence is real big on starting a statement with  leadership” and “President Trump…” That’s nauseating enough but yesterday’s session may have required a hosing down afterward.

Pence started with, “Thank you, Mr. President. This day should be an inspiration to every American, because thanks to your leadership from early on, not only are we bringing a whole of government approach to confronting the coronavirus, we’re bringing an all of America approach. Mr. President, from early on you took decisive action. You suspended all travel from China, you created travel advisories to South Korea and Italy. We screened all travelers from all airports in both of those countries. And on the unanimous recommendation of your health experts, you at midnight tonight will effectively suspend all travel from Europe and Americans that were returning will be screened and asked to voluntarily participate in a 14-day quarantine.”

Never mind the fact that Donald Trump has totally fucked up the response to the virus in service of his own self-interest. If you hadn’t thrown up by that point, it got worse. Pence continued, “Throughout this process, Mr. President, you’ve put the health of America first, but you brought the best of America to address it. And it’s not just at the federal level. As you said, Mr. President, we’ve been working with states across the country. We issued broad guidelines from the CDC for every American. But this week at your direction, we tailored specific recommendations from CDC for New York, Washington State, California, Massachusetts and Florida. And we’ve been in continuous contact, as you said, with governors around the country. Mr. President, you have forged a seamless partnership with every state and every territory in this country to put the health of our nation first.”

Whew! Finally, it stopped. Wait. No, it didn’t. It went on. “But today, I trust that people around the country that are looking on at this extraordinary public and private partnership to address the issue of testing with particular inspiration. After you tapped me to lead the White House Corona Taskforce, Mr. President, you said this is all hands on deck and you directed us to immediately reach out to the American business sector, commercial labs to meet what we knew then would be the need for testing across the spectrum. And today, with this historic public- private partnership, we have laid the foundation to meet that need. For Americans looking on, by this Sunday evening, we’ll be able to give specific guidance on when the website will be available.”

Thank God that’s over because he finally came up for air and…nope…“But it’s all a result of you tasking us with bringing together not just government resources, which all state labs can now test across the country. CDC is testing. But you said, Mr. President, that we wanted to bring all the resources of the country together and that’s what this partnership really means. Truth is that we have coronavirus cases now in 46 American states and while the risk of serious illness of the coronavirus remains low, we want to encourage every American to practice common sense, practice good hygiene, go to the CDC’s website to see what the guidance is for your community, or for the American people broadly. And as the President has said, it’s especially important now that we look after senior citizens with chronic underlying health conditions.”

It’s like the shark in Jaws. It’s coming back around! “Last week the President directed the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services to raise the standards in our…” Oh, for fuck’s sake. You get the idea. Mike Pence kisses a lot of ass. It might possibly be the one area where Trump doesn’t have enough ass.

I know Mike Pence has heard the criticism, jokes, and mocking of his ass-kissing, but has he seen and heard himself? Does he not have a problem with the entire world seeing him as a man without dignity? What do his wife and daughter think of this slavish worship? What does Marlon Bundo think? They probably know ass-kissing is second nature to Pence and he’s incapable of saying something nice about someone without putting his mouth on them. He even kissed the cruise line industry’s ass yesterday when he said, “as the President said, the American people cherish our cruise line industry” We do? But look at the skill in ass-kissing Pence displays there. He managed to kiss Donald Trump’s ass while his mouth was on a trajectory to kiss the cruise line industry’s ass. And he did it in one sentence. He should really teach a class. Kellyanne, on one knee will suffice. Willy, more pucker!

His ass-kissing needs play-by-play commentary: It looks like he’s going in to kiss the ass of the cruise line industry, Griff, but will he be able to squeeze in a smooch to the presidential derriere on the way? I don’t think so, Tom as it’s a longshot for even….WHOA, did you see that move? He did a spin around the cruise line industry, got a mouthful of the orange ass with a full reacharound before planting a big wet one on the love boat. It’s an ass-kissing hat trick! Once again, school the ass-kissing competition. Lindsey Graham just threw in the towel. Oh, I think Lindsey will be back to suck up again, Tom. Did you see the way he trampled over Devin Nunes?

Does Mike Pence hear the jokes and criticism? When Elizabeth Warren was asked about having her own Mike Pence, she said that she already has a dog. Does Mike Pence know he’s the dog? Does he know dogs don’t even want to be associated with him? It’s probably why he has a bunny (who probably doesn’t know he’s Mike Pence’s rabbit). No dog wanted to be Mike Pence’s dog. They’d rather be in one of those sad homeless skinny dog commercials with Sarah MacLachlan music playing over it.

I wonder how Mike Pence survived as a governor. He was the boss. Who did he suck up to? Jesus? I can’t imagine how Pence ever survived without being a sycophantic follower, because he wasn’t born to lead. He was born to suck up, toady, and kiss ass. Did anyone kiss Pence’s ass? If so, how much of a lowlife is that person? Has anyone ever looked at Mike Pence the way Mike Pence looks at Donald Trump? I often wonder how low you have to sink and degrade yourself to worship Donald Trump, but what kind of soul-less human worships Mike Pence (other than Indiana religious fundamentalist political cartoonist Gary Varvel)?

The biggest thing about Mike Pence kissing Donald Trump’s ass for his handling of the Coronavirus outbreak is that Donald Trump has been a total and utter failure. He’s proven American wrong in making him president. He’s the wrong man for the job and ill-equipped to do anything beyond taking care of himself. The first priority of the Trump administration has been and always will be to take care of Donald Trump. So, when Mike Pence first came on board, was he told by someone it’s mandatory to kiss Trump’s ass or did he just take it upon himself?

Some people don’t suffer fools and don’t tolerate ass-kissing, even when it’s their ass receiving the kisses. Shortly after I was hired by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, I once gave my editor a legitimate compliment on a column she wrote. She said, “Stop kissing my ass. You got the job.” I figured she was half-joking so I said, “OK. The column sucked.”

But other people reward fools. Shortly after arriving in Fredericksburg at The Free Lance-Star, my editor invited me, my then-wife, and the assistant editorial page editor over for dinner. At one point, my editor said it was our job to make the publisher happy. The assistant editor said, “I consider it my job to make….you happy.” On the way home, my wife, who is one of the most observant and intuitive people I’ve ever known, mentioned the extent of the sucking up by the assistant editor, focusing on that quote. “Damn, Jim’s ass-kissing totally ruined my appetite. How are you able to work with such groveling lickspittles?” I had been surrounded by it for a few weeks so I wasn’t even noticing it anymore but after her comment, I couldn’t unsee it ever again.

My editor at The Free Lance-Star just so happened to love having his ass kissed. Hell, he was an ass-kisser himself. He’d even kiss my ass which I always found strange since he was my boss. You’re supposed to suck up, not suck down. He also screamed at me too, quite often, so it was very much like Jekyll and Hyde. If he kissed my ass one day, I expected to be screamed at the next. But funny thing, his biggest ass kisser, who now works at a right-wing fuck-nut think tank, who proudly claimed without any shame that it was his job to make our editor happy, was constantly “motherfucker this” and “motherfucker that” when the editor wasn’t around. How much do you want to bet Mike Pence is the same?

Here’s the thing about ass-kissers. They don’t really like that ass. They’re not loyal. They’re only kissing your ass because they think it’s how they advance to the point of having their ass kissed, or even merely to survive. They don’t have faith in their skills and abilities to do the jobs they were hired for. While they obliviously don’t have any respect for themselves, they especially don’t have any for the ass they’re kissing. Oftentimes, it’s rewarded. Other times, they’re given the treatment they deserve.

Donald Trump is not loyal. We’ve never seen an American president feud with so many former staffers, each previously described as “the best hires,” as Trump has. Jeff Sessions illustrates two points here perfectly. He’s an ass kisser. He was the first Senator to kiss Trump’s ass in endorsing him. He wore a MAGA hat at that rally in Mobile. Eventually, Sessions was fired for doing his job. Today, Sessions is in a runoff for his old Senate seat and he’s still kissing Donald Trump’s ass. And Donald Trump…wait for it…has endorsed his opponent. In case you’re an ass-kissing Republican, let me point out the two points of this: Kissing Donald Trump’s ass didn’t pay off for Sessions and Donald Trump does not return loyalty.

So, you can bet your own ass that if Trump sees a change in the landscape for his reelection and believes he needs a stronger candidate as veep to secure his reelection, Pence is gone. I’m waiting to see what Trump does after Joe Biden picks a woman as his running mate. Biden will pick a woman. Will Trump react by dumping Mike Pence for Nikki Haley? Nikki’s done her own share of kissing Trump’s ass. How will Pence act in the future?

Funny thing, all these ass-kissers initially wanted someone other than Trump. Mike Pence endorsed Ted Cruz (and the guy kissed Cruz’s ass?) Nikki Haley endorsed Marco Rubio. I know average, ordinary, everyday Americans who opposed Donald Trump who now worship the guy. What did Trump change? Nothing. They changed. They gave up their dignity.

You can be nice, cordial, and complimentary of someone without giving up your dignity and being a servile ass-kisser. But that’s impossible if you don’t have confidence or belief in yourself…or any dignity or self-respect to begin with. And to kiss the ass of a racist, grifting conman with worms for brains requires a total lack of dignity and self-respect.

Mike Pence doesn’t have dignity or self-respect. He will always be an ass man but he won’t always be a Trump ass man. Down the line, he’s going to be critical of Trump and try to remove all guilt and blame from himself for today’s disaster, especially after Donald Trump throws his ass under a bus. But during that time in the future, he’ll have a new ass to kiss which will be at some right-wing college or think tank because he’ll have used up all his credits for public service by then.

Mike Pence is an ass-kisser. Don’t be like Mike Pence. Stay away from the ass, especially the great big orange ones.

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From 

Watch me draw.