For your amusement or dismay, as the case may be, five minutes of increasingly awkward ducking o’ the question. “I think you believe in evolution,” says Matthews at one point, “but you’re afraid to say so because your conservative constituency might find that offensive.” Actually, my hunch is that he doesn’t believe in it but is afraid to say so lest he be deemed a total crank by the media. I thought the standard line for creationist Republican politicians when asked this question is to say yes, of course they accept Darwin, before quickly adding that that’s not strictly incompatible with belief in a Christian God. That way you get to have your cake and eat it too. Why would Pence decline to do so unless he couldn’t utter both parts of that rote answer in good faith?

Maybe Matthews is just grumpy because he knows that, despite the left’s best efforts, the public still doesn’t much care about global warming. Watch it all the way through, incidentally, or else you’ll miss his salute to the intellects of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and, of course, Sarah Palin. And to think, I thought he misspoke that time when he accused her of not knowing how to read.