It must have been a rainy weekend day where I didn’t have much to do because I decided to rent Schindler’s List and Titanic and watch both movies for the first time on the same day, one after another. That whole experience was...interesting.

To be honest, I don’t remember all that much about Schindler’s List now but I very vividly remember the moral conundrum that I, at least, had with the movie.

Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party who employed Jewish and non-Jewish Poles in Krakow, Poland. [For some reason, I thought that he kept these employees as slave labor (with the exception of his Jewish accountant Stern) but Wikipedia indicates he did pay them.]

More significantly, he protected his employees from the concentration camps, mainly through the bribing of Gestapo officials. So much so that he went broke paying the Gestapo bribes.

So...end of the war, Schindler is broke, is at risk of being arrested as a war criminal and relies on Jewish organizations for sustenance and in order to not be arrested as a war criminal.

And...he’s a hero?

Learning just now that Schindler did, in fact, pay his employees (as opposed to using his employees as slaves) makes the issue of Schindler’s heroism much less confusing. But still...he was a member of the Nazi Party, endorsing all of those genocidal politics save for his employees who made him money.

Well...first of all, Jewish people say that Oskar Schindler is, indeed, a hero, and I defer to their judgment being as they were the victims of the genocidal Nazis.

If they say Oskar Schindler is a hero, then he is, period.

The more significant thing that Schindler’s List made me aware of was the sheer enormity of the Nazi evil and the downward-spiraling moral and ethical depths that German society gone; a man like Oskar Schindler was, in that social context, a hero, yes.

I’m thinking of this because the ”downward spiraling moral and ethical depths” is what comes to mind when I look at Republican after Republican witness describe what they were confronted with during the time between the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and attack on the Capitol. Without that “downward spiraling;” no Republican comes out of these hearings anything like a hero and even then...their heroism is debatable.

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Let’s take former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance.

For this exercise, I want to avoid any partisan feelings that I may have; clearly I disagree vehemently with Pence’s politics.

Furthermore, Article 2 Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the primary job of the Vice President is to be there when there is a vacancy in the Office of the Presidency; the Vice President is also the President of the Senate and, as such, breaks ties and has a ceremonial role in the counting of the electoral votes.

In all other matters as far as the job description, the Vice President serves at the pleasure of the President as far as duties are concerned.

The Vice President, like the President, also swears to an oath…

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Unlike Oskar Schinidler and the Nazi situation, defending the Constitution is the Vice President’s job, against all enemies, foreign and domestic (even when that domestic enemy happens to be the President of the United States, I suppose).

Even in times of danger.

I’ll admit that for Mike Pence, January 6, 2021 was very dangerous.

On that day he could have been killed. On that day, he did not trust the driver of his VP motorcade and did not follow his chief of staff and others into that car. (Usually, you do what Secret Service tells you to do.)

That was a heroic act, yes.

But in filling in this picture of the downward moral spiral that America and the Trump Administration had become, we still aren’t hearing from Mike Pence in person or even a video-taped deposition.

We don’t know what Trump said to him on that now infamous phone call or how the president said it.

Oskar Schindler bribed Nazi officials time after time after time to protect his employees. Schindler went broke protecting his employees from the gas chambers.

Mike Pence stood up to Trump’s illegality, but that’s his oath.

He did a courageous act and even, dare I say, a heroic act in not getting into that car.

But at this time, we need to hear what all was said and done from Mike Pence, himself.

Hiding behind your aides, trying to hide behind the MAGA that won’t elect you...that won’t cut it.

Ultimately, Mike Pence can be either a...I’ll say it, a hero (still) or a coward. Cost what it may.

It’s his legacy, not mine.

(Nothing from the field for Top Comments this evening)

Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.

And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion: