Three years ago, during his first campaign for elected office, the then-Senate candidate appeared on Fox News and diagnosed what he saw as a crisis plaguing the United States. The country, Vance told a national television audience, was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. It’s just a basic fact.”

The future senator specifically included Vice President Kamala Harris — who has step-children, but no biological children of her own — in his societal condemnation.

Link to tweet

......As part of an apparent attempt to put things right, the Ohioan sat down with Megyn Kelly today and addressed the controversy, arguing:

“Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats. ... But look, this is not — people are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry, it’s true. It is true that we’ve become anti-family. It is true that the left has become anti-child.”

I have a hunch this won’t make matters better. For one thing, for Vance to say he has “nothing against cats” suggests he’s under the impression that the controversy is feline-related. It’s not. The underlying question is about whether he has something against women, not something against cats.

For another, his 2021 comments were many things, but they weren’t “sarcastic.” On the contrary, he appears to have doubled down on the comments that sparked the controversy in the first place.

Finally, if Vance has credible evidence of liberals being “anti-child,” he’s kept it well hidden.

I can appreciate why the vice presidential hopeful is trying to clean up his mess, but Vance has had plenty of time to work out a defense, and if “nothing against cats” is the best he can come up with, the Republican’s problem is likely to linger for a while.