Mike Pence has got to have the worst job in America, right now.

Apparently, as an 11-year old supporter queried last week, Pence’s job, as running mate of the biggest fraud to ever be forced on the American people, is to clean up the never ending media messes.

“It seems like every single day the national press latches on to some other issue about my running mate, just each and every day of the week,” Pence told a crowd of a few hundred Tuesday night, extending his usual stump speech riff on the press. “But you know what they’re not talking about? Anything having to do with Hillary Clinton.”

The press is going to do what the press does. Trump used outrage and a complicit media to roll over a crowded field of more seasoned, professional candidates. Composure, policy knowledge, and an actual plan to defeat the Democrats in November was traded for the circus that is Trump.

If there’s an issue for the press to latch on to each and every day, it’s because that’s all Trump has in his wheelhouse: Controversy. It’s not going to get much easier for Governor Pence, either, because Trump has already indicated that he has no intention of changing his ways.

“You’re not even going to believe this — yesterday at a rally outside of Orlando, Florida, the father of the very radical Islamic terrorist who murdered 49 Americans attended a rally, was on television through most of the rally sitting behind Hillary Clinton. And he said he was there because he supports Hillary Clinton because she’s, quote, ‘good on national security,’” Pence said. “Now the media’s not talking about that, I expect because Hillary Clinton’s been a disaster on national security.”

I’m sure Pence understands how this works, but he has to play the game.

The father of a terrorist attending a candidate’s rally, and even receiving special placement in the audience, is bad optics, no doubt. In fact, during any other campaign season, and with any other opponent, Hillary Clinton would have spent the next month, at least, trying to explain away the incident.

However, along comes Trump to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He makes a statement that could very logically be seen as a threat against his opponent’s life, and of course, that becomes the main story of the day.

If I were working for one of the major news outlets, I would have been all over it, myself.

A candidate suggesting that perhaps “Second Amendment people” – as in, gun owners – would have something to say about Clinton’s Supreme Court picks isn’t even clumsy speech. It’s outright reckless and sends a message at a time when our nation is sitting on a powder keg that no responsible person should want to get out there.

Of course the media forgot about some guy sitting behind Clinton at a rally. He didn’t pull the trigger in Orlando, after all. He was just the dad of the guy who did.

Thanks to Trump, it became a big Nothing burger to the press.

Great way to throw the 2^nd Amendment and gun rights under the bus, in the process, as well. Expect to see the Clinton machine latch on to this remark and use it to push a gun-grabbing agenda, using this as proof to tie lawful gun owners to the dangerous rhetoric of Trump.

The comments were “of course not” meant to incite violence, Pence said. It is not the first time Pence has lashed out at the media after Trump has made controversial comments. When Trump seemed to encourage Russian hackers to find Clinton’s missing emails, Pence said the comments were “laced with sarcasm” and intended as a joke. He also said the news media have not paid enough attention to the victims of the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

One has to really wonder if Mike Pence is finding himself waking with a violent start in the middle of the night, cold sweat beading his forehead, desperately forcing his mind to cut through the fog of sleep, as he tries to distinguish between nightmare and reality, only to find that the reality of his current existence is worse.

I’m sorry, Governor, but you signed on with this traveling freak show. Next time, read the fine print before you sign your life away.