The only thing missing from this word cloud is "big fat liar"
On Tuesday morning, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence held a
press conference to
once again try and defend his state's new license-to-discriminate law that he
eagerly signed last week. And given that Pence has been
lying about it repeatedly since then, claiming that the bill he signed was no different than the
Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) signed into federal law nearly 20 years ago, and that it would not allow businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community, it seemed worthwhile to count up all the times he made those bogus claims during today's presser.
But I must say, in going through the transcript of today's edition of damage control disguised as a train wreck, the enormity of this task was nearly overwhelming because oftentimes Pence managed to lie multiple times in the same answer, making it difficult to decide whether to count it as one lie, two lies, three lies ... so erring on the side of generosity (mostly because reading his words so soon after listening to him was giving me a headache), here's what I came up with:
- The number of times Pence lied by claiming the Indiana law was no different than the RFRA? A whopping 12 times. (And by the way, who knew that Mike Pence was such a Bill Clinton fan?)
- The number of times Pence lied by claiming that his new hate-law wouldn't allow businesses to discriminate against gay people? Coincidentally, 12 times.
- And just for fun, how many times did Pence sob about "misunderstandings," "mischaracterizations," "smears" and (my favorite) "perception problems" over the law? They were the big winner at 17 times.
Pence also spent a fair amount of time whining about the media and waxing poetic about his love for Martin Luther King Jr., not to mention harking back to the good old days in high school when he was a Democrat and cared about injustice. Because today he just "abhors discrimination of any kind." Except when he doesn't.
#BoycottIndiana