Opinion: Trump said Pence is 'too honest'

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/ [login to see] /opinion-trump-said-pence-is-too-honest
Donald Trump has uttered many colorful phrases. But his best-known may now become what this week's indictment reports he said when Vice President Mike Pence refused to comply with a scheme to overturn the lawful result of the 2020 election. Donald Trump told him, "You're too honest."

It reminded me of a moment in Shakespeare's Macbeth, when Lady Macbeth despairs Macbeth has lost the appetite to slaughter their rivals.

"Yet, I do fear thy nature," she tells him. "It is too full o' the milk of human kindness."

The crimes and compromises people can be tempted to commit for power is a hallowed theme in literature. Those stories tell us how such misdeeds can be perpetrated by people who convince themselves they're doing good for what they insist is some larger cause.