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Vail: Where veeps come to play while democracy crumbles

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September 16, 2021, 7:48 am
Security in Vail during Mike Pence’s holiday visit late in 2020.

Why is it that when Republican presidential administrations are in shambles, their vice presidents escape to Vail? Is it that crisp, clean mountain air that helps clear the senses and refocus a second-in-commander-in-chief on things that really matter in life, like powder skiing, slope-side fine dining and, say, the constitution?

We don’t have a very detailed sense of just what former Vice President Mike Pence was doing during his holiday visit to Vail over the Christmas break late last year – a spendy trip for taxpayers that was first reported by RealVail.com.

Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Pence

But, if the new book “Peril” by the great Bob Woodward is to be believed (and why shouldn’t it be after his journalistic role in making Vail the winter White House back in the 70s?), then Pence spent at least a little of his time in Vail on the phone with former George H.W. Bush VP and fellow Hoosier Dan Quayle.

Yes, that Dan Quayle — the one who couldn’t spell potato but learned to snowboard in Vail in the early 90s (as captured on film by a local photographer). My sense is a lot of snowboarders are spelling-challenged, but that’s another blog.

Of course, Woodward, the Washington Post Watergate reporter of Woodward and Bernstein fame who helped bring down President Richard Nixon, will forever be linked the ascendancy of Gerald R. Ford to the presidency after Nixon had the good sense to resign in disgrace.

Ford, a Michigan congressman at the time, loved to ski Vail in the early days, so when Nixon VP Spiro Agnew also resigned in shame, Ford first became VP and then president, putting a national spotlight on Vail.

I interviewed Ford when Nixon died in 94 and revisited that story recently on RealVail.com, with some added analysis of Trump’s impeachment compared to Nixon’s resignation.

But back to Quayle and his conversation late last year with Pence – no doubt from Vail — as the VP’s perfunctory certification of the November Electoral College vote loomed in early January of this year.

Pence has been lauded as a hero for risking hanging by an angry mob on Jan. 6 and going through with his sworn constitutional duty to certify the election of President Joe Biden and defeat of former President Donald Trump, but Peril cast doubt on Pence’s moral compass at the time.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent Washington Post story on Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book Peril:

“So intent was Pence on being Trump’s loyal second-in-command — and potential successor — that he asked confidants if there were ways he could accede to Trump’s demands and avoid certifying the results of the election on Jan. 6. In late December, the authors reveal, Pence called Dan Quayle, a former vice president and fellow Indiana Republican, for advice.

Dan Quayle

“Quayle was adamant, according to the authors. ‘Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,’ he said.

“But Pence pressed him, the authors write, asking if there were any grounds to pause the certification because of ongoing legal challenges. Quayle was unmoved, and Pence ultimately agreed, according to the book.

“When Pence said he planned to certify the results, the president lashed out. In the Oval Office on Jan. 5, the authors write, Pence told Trump he could not thwart the process, that his role was simply to ‘open the envelopes.’

“’I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this,’ Trump replied, according to the book, later telling his vice president, ‘You’ve betrayed us. I made you. You were nothing.’”

Contrast that with Ford telling me back in 94 that he pardoned Nixon for the good of the badly divided country, even though he knew it would cost him the presidency in 76, which it did (to Jimmy Carter).

And now there appear to be few Republicans with the kind of character necessary to shout down “The Big Lie” that Trump continues to poison the nation with, justifying massive voter suppression and gerrymandering by the truth-challenged GOP. U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of another dubious Bush veep, is one of the few exceptions.

But her voice in the wilderness may be too little, too late to stop another Jan. 6 insurrection and domestic terrorism attack on our democracy. If that happens, Kamala Harris, you’re always welcome in Vail.

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.

2 Responses to Vail: Where veeps come to play while democracy crumbles

  1. Mickey Moran

    September 16, 2021 at 8:07 am

    Considering the craphole this place has turned into these days I doubt Ford would want to be here now. This area was much more conservative when he spent his time here. Pence was always a dud. Trump would have been better off had he picked Rand Paul for VP.

  2. Bosco Hern

    March 3, 2022 at 5:53 pm

    I know this article was long ago, but, just for the record, Democrat Walter Mondale – and his wife, Joan, who was a much better skier – skied Vail annually while he was VP, including during 10+ percent inflation and the Iran hostage crisis. Maybe Vail was more conservative then, but, in the late 1970s, most conservative leaders were not intent on replacing democracy with mob rule. Ford and Mondale would ski together.