So I’m trying to think through the whole mess with Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. For those of you who’ve been living under rocks, he was revealed in a Washington Post article to have, let’s say, gone to second or third base (depending on your metrics) with a 14 year old girl when he was 32. Moore, of course, denies the allegations, but the general consensus is the girl, now woman, in question, is being truthful, that there are witnesses who corroborate her story, and indicators that she has no axe to grind — she voted for Trump, after all, and she was not a supporter of Moore’s opponent. It’s possible that she’s lying, but it seems unlikely; she doesn’t seem to have anything to gain from it, nor does there appear to have been any further contact that would suggest that she’s seeking revenge in some way for some other (non-criminal) transgression.
Moore and his supporters not only say these are false, but that this is a dirty trick, especially because they waited until the election was so close that the Republicans can’t remove him from the ballot. And it may well be the case that the Post held on to the story until the point at which it would do the Republican Party the most harm. And that’s sleazy. But it’s pretty much a given that journalists will do this, and candidates, and political parties, have to expect it.
So I asked myself, what is the best possible explanation for Moore’s, er, activities?
The report describes four different “events.”
In the first, in 1979, he befriends a 14 year old girl, Leigh Corfman, while he was 32. He took her on a “date” to his house, where he kissed her, then took her home at her request. A second time she accepted an invitation, he brought her to his house, he underssed himself and her to underwear, and he touched her through her underwear and tried to get her to do the same; she pulled away, got dressed, had him take her home, and rejected his subsequent invitation.
Subsequent to this, Moore dated an 18 year old, “off and on for several months” but there was no physical relationship other than kissing and hugging. They went out to dinner, and went to his house “at least two times.” He also asked a 16 year old out, but she rejected him. And two years later, he dated a 17 year old girl, “read her poetry and played his guitar” and very chastely kissed her twice.
A year after these events, he ran for circuit court judge, lost overwhelmingly, left Alabama to train as a kickboxer in Texas, then spent a year on a ranch in Australia wrangling cattle, and returned in 1984. In 1985, at age 38, he married a 24 year old woman, and has been married to her ever since.
So what do you make of this? It seems odd that the first of these narratives is quite unlike the other two “girlfriends” — a rushed and clumsy attempt to “score” vs. a very chaste relationship. With the older girls, it seems less like an older man trying to abuse his position of power, than a socially awkward man who just didn’t have the self-awareness that he was, in fact, so much older than these girls that they were out of bounds. And the subsequent “finding yourself” sort of trip seems to fit. But the 14 year old? It doesn’t make sense at all. Would a vicious predator move from this failed attempt to chaste dates with poetry and guitar? Did he “go to confession” or whatever the equivalent would be for a Southern Baptist? Was he in fact ashamed of his behavior, but still unable to approach women closer to his age? Maybe experts will expertly announce that this is what predators do, that in his chaste dates he was grooming these older teen girls, having studied up on how to score with teenagers (from what source I don’t know, in pre-internet days), but if so he wasn’t very good at his predation.
But even in this best possible perspective of what Moore did, you can’t just shrug it off. Even if he was immature and awkward rather than cold and calculating, he committed a crime.
(With the older teens, it’s just weird behavior, not criminal, and there are no indicators that he tried to take advantage of them, so they really shouldn’t be lumped in with the very-different incident with Corfman.)
And it just seems nuts to deny it. Admittedly, this is coming out so close to the election that Moore can’t simply hand over his place on the ballot to another Republican. I suppose he could say, “Vote for me because it’s too late to do otherwise, but I pledge that I will resign.”
I also spent way too much time trying to figure out his supporters, and really didn’t make much headway. Moore seems to be saying something like, “I didn’t do it, and if I did, I don’t remember it,” and there seem to be a number of supporters who are willing to take that denial at face value, either because they genuinely believe him or they just don’t want to have to deal with the implications of it being true. The are claims that the Post bribed the women to make these claims. Breitbart reports that one of the older-teen accusers has a Facebook page replete with anti-Moore, pro-Democrat items. The Gateway Pundit claims that Corfman had accused multiple pastors of making advances on her, undermining he credibility. The quite-true fact that the Washington Establishment had, quite reasonably, supported Moore’s opponent in the primary, and dislikes Moore’s brand of looniness, gives them more than enough reason to believe there’s a conspiracy to bring Moore down.
But there are also those who have taken the approach of “I support him even if he did it.” And this is worth thinking about a little bit more.
What if Moore, in fact, fessed up?
Sure, there’s the issue of the statute of limitations, and whether, if he admitted to anything, he’d be criminally liable. So let’s bracket that for the time being, and assume that he’s at no risk of jail time, or even a witch-hunt trial.
What if he said something like the following? “Yes, these allegations are true. Growing up, I had never dated anyone. At this time, when I was 32, I was very socially awkward and immature, and never felt I had anything in common with women my own age. The incident with Ms. Corfman is embarrassing to me, and I was ashamed and vowed afterwards to be chaste. I continued to ask older teenage girls out but never attempted anything more than a kiss, and going to Australia was a transformative experience in my life that changed me and helped me to become a mature adult. I apologize to Ms. Corfman for my actions, and I apologize to everyone to whom I lied over the last couple days in my embarrassment.”
How would voters, pundits, politicians, react? What actions, albeit in the past, are unpardonable? Does it matter whether the individual was “found out” at the time, and served time, for crimes, or was punished by the community in some other way (job loss, for example)? If the candidate you supported (not someone you didn’t like anyway) was revealed to have a skeleton in his closet, at what point would you change your vote, or stay home from the polls? Alternately, would you be willing to vote for someone whose skeleton was visible for all to see?
Image: Roy Moore’s date? from Pixabay; https://pixabay.com/en/restaurant-table-light-candle-710961/
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