Posted on 11/15/2017 7:58:11 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
I'll cut to the chase: I think Roy Moore did it. And I can predict what Moore supporters will say: "Of course you would believe that!"
After all, I called for conservatives to repudiate Moore, the Alabama Republican candidate for the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, before the Washington Post's meticulously reported story alleging that Moore dated teenagers and, in one instance, molested a 14 year-old-girl. So naturally, I would exploit this politically timed "smear" to ruin a "good man."
That's the nature of the Moore defense I'm hearing, not just from folks on Twitter and via email, but from prominent politicos and pundits. It's all just a hoax perpetrated by people who don't want to Make America Great Again.
I would say it's a terrible argument, but calling it an argument is too generous. Here's Breitbart honcho Steven Bannon on Thursday:
"The Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump," Bannon told a New Hampshire audience, "is the same Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore. Now is that a coincidence?"
This is typical of Bannon's demagogic style. Because the Post is allegedly out to get Moore, not only can we not believe what the Post reports, we don't have to credit what any of the people talking to the Post on the record actually said. It's a kind of motivated reasoning that lets audiences connect dots and reach conclusions unsupported by the facts.
Bannon uses lots of adjectival nouns -- "Bezos-Amazon Washington Post"! -- to insinuate a nefarious conspiracy that everyone is supposed to know about. He appeals to intellectual vanity and insecurity: Surely you don't believe this is a coincidence! This is a classic example of the paranoid style, inferring evil intentions from objective facts.
The most telling detail is Bannon's claim that the Post "dropped a dime" on Trump with the "Access Hollywood" tape. Translation: They're snitches!
But here's the thing: Snitches may or may not be bad people, but what makes people hate snitches is that they tell the truth. A snitch, by definition, is an informer, not a liar.
And the one fact Bannon leaves out of his innuendo-drenched word salad is that the "Access Hollywood" story was actually, you know, true. Trump said what he said -- on tape -- in his own words! Whether he was lying when he talked about sexually assaulting women is a different question altogether. The Post didn't make anything up then, and I don't think it's making anything up now.
That said, I'm entirely open to the idea that the Post is out to get Moore. But reporters' motives aren't nearly as important as people think. The Post was surely out to get Richard Nixon during Watergate; that doesn't change the fact that Nixon was guilty. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, many people were out to get Bill Clinton (me included), but that doesn't mean he didn't have an affair with an intern and lie about it under oath. The motivations of truth-tellers cannot turn the truth into a lie.
Both the Post's reporting and victims' testimony are persuasive for reasons widely discussed. But there's one point no one has made: If these women were willing to lie, why not go all in and say they were raped, or insist Moore wouldn't take "no" for an answer? In for a penny, in for a pound, after all.
But perhaps most damning are Moore's creepy denials. When Fox News host Sean Hannity asked, almost begged, Moore to deny the allegations categorically, Moore was evasive, lawyerly and weird. If someone asked me if I ever dated teenagers when I was in my 30s, my reply would be "absolutely not." It wouldn't be "it would have been out of my customary behavior." When asked if he remembered dating teenagers, Moore answered, "Not generally, no." At one point, with barely restrained pique, he insisted, "I don't remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother."
That's an odd thing to say if you never dated teenagers.
Moore and his defenders are counting on the fact that his supporters don't want the allegations to be true. And, shamefully for all concerned, it's working.
“I think Roy Moore did it”
Well, Jonah, everyone has an opinion.
What is the basis for your belief?
You mean, after all these decades, these women could never merely mentioned, to some close friends, that they sort of knew the creepy guy because they were so scarred?
I used to buy and read Cuck Goldberg’s books. NEVER AGAIN.
Some people observe that our society is so swamped in lawyers that the average person commits three felonies a day without even realizing it.
This idea is sometimes linked to Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and the character of Dr. Floyd Ferris who observed that you can’t rule over innocent men, but if you make all men guilty — through a million laws — then you find it’s easy to rule guilty men.
And now with Moore — he didn’t even commit a crime. There is no crime here. But that doesn’t stop them. They don’t need you to commit three felonies a day, and they don’t need you to be guilty of anything. They will just point the finger and demand that you step aside.
What happened to America?
FWIW, Goldberg is getting slammed, at the comments section ;-)
Do you have a link to that actual tweet? TIA.
How many more lying ladies are they going to trot out?
Sorry No...i actually got it off facebook.
The women voicing grievance against Roy Moore might have damaged his career in the months before the primary. If that had been, Republican Luther Strange or some other Republican less supportive of Senate Leader McConnell would have won the primary election. The women chose to wait for Moore’s victory in the primary; then they chose to wait until the general election was so close that the ballots can’t be changed. With this timing, there is much more at stake than closure for the women. It’s not just Moore’s career that goes into the garbage pail of history. The great likelihood is that a Democrat will emerge to claim the seat formerly held by AG Sessions. Such a person will not represent Republican Alabama; rather he will be a Chuck Schumer drone, doing nothing that Alabama voters want. Democrats are destructive to freedom, prosperity, national sovereignty and security. Democrats condone and even promote corruption. Democrats’ work product is hate for President Trump, his supporters, and traditional American values. The women’s grievance is stale, not because it’s 38 years old. It’s stale because national security is at stake. The voter’s choice is going to be set aside without comment. If Alabama voter’s embrace this perspective, they can deal a blow against the lazy obstinate establishment swamp critters by giving Moore a landslide. Vote for Judge Roy Moore.
The women’s hurt is not trivialized. Women being grabbed for the gratification of bosses in corporate or government offices is already largely suppressed in most places. More needs to be done in Hollywood and other places where liberal licentiousness prevails. Women will be better off, if they speak up in a more timely fashion. They must also resist other men who would manipulate their grievances for reasons having nothing to do with women’s rights, and having everything to do with political ulterior motives.
Its that simple. None of those entities are believable due to the long pattern of self serving lying.
I would very loosely agree on Laura but Jonah has a giant NT tattooed on his forehead.
Okay, thanks. I’ll look for it.
I agree, based on the responses I've always gotten from my parents when I've inquired about the 1970s. ("We'll talk when you're married..." "Not going there until you're fifty -- if then..." "That's gotta wait 'til my censor's broke.")
Apparently it was an extreme swing of the pendulum. And frankly, I'm not too disturbed that men find young women attractive, which seems to be legal.
I've concluded that the smokescreen of former 17yo's is just assembled to sneak in a former 14yo accuser. And if they need to do it that way they have no proof. And to present the accusation without proof tells me they're only interested in an effective smear campaign.
Did you all see Laura Ingrahm’s show last night? She reported that taxpayers have been paying hush money to women who brought charges against congressmen.. who are still serving. This has to be brought out if they are going to keep Moore out. Moore’s accusations were over 40 yrs ago.... this latest is going on now in congress.
And one former mall security guard says he remembers a cop told him to watch more but didn’t tell him why. Now the official word is he was banned from the mall.
ALABAMA DIRTY TRICKS from @TheDemocrats @washingtonpost ...#RoyMoore accuser #3 is Deborah Wesson Gibson is Lib DEM political activist who worked 4 Clinton camp & volunteer for Moore's DEM opponent @GDouglasJones.
FYI ..Gibson scrubbing her FB page of her DEM activity & pics. pic.twitter.com/ONrCOkXEgR— Small Biz for Trump (@SmallBiz4Trump) November 10, 2017
Here is a twitter feed link that has all kinds of links/tweets showing this accuser’s connections to Dems....
https://twitter.com/search?q=deborah%20wesson%20gibson&src=tyah
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