““America is founded on a simple idea, and that idea… [dramatic pause] is freedom.” So declared Vice President Mike Pence in a booming staccato during his Friday morning CPAC address.

““Freedom works,” Pence assured the room of conservative conference-goers. “We have the courage to stand for freedom.”

“Pence played the hits: low unemployment, strong economy, tax cuts and an extended riff about infanticide. A customary “build-the-wall” chant broke out, but fizzled nearly as soon as it began.

“That’s CPAC’s dirty little secret: The wall is not the fetish object it once was.

“Even though wall-funding was the catalyst of both the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and President Trump’s subsequent National Emergency declaration, most speakers would rather spend time roasting freshman Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), her Green New Deal or zero in on the bogeyman-du-jour: socialism.”

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