The Scatology Was Not Really the Point

Yikes this local coverage https://t.co/8jry92XVvQ

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 4, 2019

This was:

Instead, he veered off his rather gushing statement following his meeting with the Taoiseach into some crunching Brexit remarks about our duty to do right by Boris Johnson and the UK.

As the air in the steamy ballroom turned decidedly frosty, Pence urged Ireland and the European Union “to negotiate in good faith” with the new British prime minister.

The local crowd raised eyebrows and wondered what he thinks the aforementioned EU has been doing for the last three years, if not negotiating in good faith with the UK.

Varadkar’s expression didn’t change. He stood on the platform beside the vice-president and hardly flinched, smiling politely.Even when Pence made it worse by not only mentioning “good faith” and “Boris Johnson” in the same context but by also requesting his hosts to have “respect for the UK’s sovereignty”, Varadkar maintained a stoic courtesy.

He had to. It’s in the job description for normal prime ministers.

That was when Pence "shat on the carpet."  And again, the image is not the point; it's the message behind the metaphor that matters.

I don't know much about Irish history, beyond what little I had to learn when I studied Yeats' poetry in graduate school.  I pieced together the rest, and hardly claim to be an expert.  But as a British MP once said, attributing it to his Irish grandfather, "There's a reason the sun never sat on the British Empire.  It's because even God doesn't trust an Englishman in the dark!"  And the reported story that when Churchill came calling on newly liberated Ireland for help against the Germans who might well have crossed the Channel and knocked on the door of Buckingham Palace, the Irish responded with the rough equivalent of "Sucks to be you, boyo."

The Irish had that point had not forgotten the potato famines of the 19th century, when Englishmen owned much of Ireland and expected it to satisfy their hunger for potatoes, whether it left them susceptible to disease or not.  The Irish don't have fond memories of the British Empire ruling them, and they still remember the British not being too fond of Irish sovereignty in the north.  They also know they will be the ones who suffer if England can't find a solution to the Irish/Northern Ireland border quandary (Northern Ireland will leave the EU with Britain, Ireland will stay in the EU, and the border between them will have to close).

So Pence:

lards on his Mother Machree schtick on both sides of the Atlantic. He couldn’t praise Ireland enough on Tuesday – “deeply humbled” and “honoured” to be going to the hometown of his mother’s grandmother and so on.

And then he shits on the rug by what he says.  But it's what he said, that's the point for the Irish; not how the Irish columnist described it.