The Atlantic

Mike Pence and His Talent for Being Absent

In the swirl of headlines around President Trump and the White House, Vice President Mike Pence hardly merits a mention.
Source: Chris Wattie / Reuters

If the children’s book “Where’s Waldo?” were to be retooled as an adult tome about contemporary Washington, Mike Pence could play the starring role. Nobody else in town can match his talent for conspicuous absence. If John McCain’s family had not announced that Pence would be surfacing to speak at the Washington memorial service, Americans may well have assumed that he was dwelling, Dick Cheney style, in a secure undisclosed location.

Amidst all the latest melodramas—the Paul Manafort conviction, the Michael Cohen flip—Pence has rarely been seen or heard, and his name has rarely pierced the news cycle. An exhaustive Thursday by The Washington Post, charting the legal storm that threatens to

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