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So I\u2019m trying to think through the whole mess with Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.\u00a0 For those of you who\u2019ve been living under rocks, he was revealed in a Washington Post article<\/a> to have, let\u2019s say, gone to second or third base (depending on your metrics) with a 14 year old girl when he was 32.\u00a0 \u00a0Moore, 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 \u2014 she voted for Trump, after all, and she was not a supporter of Moore\u2019s opponent.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible<\/em> that she\u2019s lying, but it seems unlikely; she doesn\u2019t seem to have anything to gain from it, nor does there appear to have been any further contact that would suggest that she\u2019s seeking revenge in some way for some other (non-criminal) transgression.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t remove him from the ballot.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And that\u2019s sleazy.\u00a0 But it\u2019s\u00a0pretty much a given that journalists will do this, and candidates, and political parties, have to expect it.<\/p>\n So I asked myself, what is the best possible explanation for Moore\u2019s, er, activities?<\/p>\n The report describes four different \u201cevents.\u201d<\/p>\n In the first, in 1979, he befriends a 14 year old girl, Leigh Corfman, while he was 32.\u00a0 He took her on a \u201cdate\u201d to his house, where he kissed her, then took her home at her request.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Subsequent to this, Moore dated an 18 year old, \u201coff and on for several months\u201d but there was no physical relationship other than kissing and hugging.\u00a0 They went out to dinner, and went to his house \u201cat least two times.\u201d\u00a0 He also asked a 16 year old out, but she rejected him.\u00a0 And two years later, he dated a 17 year old girl, \u201cread her poetry and played his guitar\u201d and very chastely kissed her twice.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 In 1985, at age 38, he married a 24 year old woman, and has been married to her ever since.<\/p>\n So what do you make of this?\u00a0 It seems odd that the first of these narratives is quite unlike the other two \u201cgirlfriends\u201d \u2014 a rushed and clumsy attempt to \u201cscore\u201d vs. a very chaste relationship.\u00a0 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\u2019t have the self-awareness that he was, in fact, so much older than these girls that they were out of bounds.\u00a0 And the subsequent \u201cfinding yourself\u201d sort of trip seems to fit.\u00a0 But the 14 year old?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make sense at all.\u00a0 Would a vicious predator move from this failed attempt to chaste dates with poetry and guitar?\u00a0 Did he \u201cgo to confession\u201d or whatever the equivalent would be for a Southern Baptist?\u00a0 Was he in fact ashamed of his behavior, but still unable to approach women closer to his age?\u00a0 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\u2019t know, in pre-internet days), but if so he wasn\u2019t very good at his predation.<\/p>\n But even in this best possible perspective of what Moore did, you can\u2019t just shrug it off.\u00a0 Even if he was immature and awkward rather than cold and calculating, he committed a crime.<\/p>\n (With the older teens, it\u2019s just weird behavior, not criminal, and there are no indicators that he tried to take advantage of them, so they really shouldn\u2019t be lumped in with the very-different incident with Corfman.)<\/p>\n And it just seems nuts to deny it.\u00a0 Admittedly, this is coming out so close to the election that Moore can\u2019t simply hand over his place on the ballot to another Republican.\u00a0 I suppose he could say, \u201cVote for me because it\u2019s too late to do otherwise, but I pledge that I will resign.\u201d<\/p>\n I also spent way too much time trying to figure out his supporters, and really didn\u2019t make much headway.\u00a0 Moore seems to be saying something like, \u201cI didn\u2019t do it, and if I did, I don\u2019t remember it,\u201d 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\u2019t want to have to deal with the implications of it being true.\u00a0\u00a0The are claims that the\u00a0Post bribed the women<\/a>\u00a0to make these claims.\u00a0\u00a0Breitbart reports<\/a> that one of the older-teen accusers has a Facebook page replete with anti-Moore, pro-Democrat items.\u00a0 The Gateway Pundit<\/a> claims that Corfman had accused multiple pastors of making advances on her, undermining he credibility.\u00a0 The quite-true fact that the Washington Establishment had, quite reasonably, supported Moore\u2019s opponent in the primary, and dislikes Moore\u2019s brand of looniness, gives them more than enough reason to believe there\u2019s a conspiracy to bring Moore down.<\/p>\n But there are also those who have taken the approach of \u201cI support him even if he did it.\u201d\u00a0 And this is worth thinking about a little bit more.<\/p>\n What if Moore, in fact, fessed up?<\/p>\n Sure, there\u2019s the issue of the statute of limitations, and whether, if he admitted to anything, he\u2019d be criminally liable.\u00a0 So let\u2019s bracket that for the time being, and assume that he\u2019s at no risk of jail time, or even a witch-hunt trial.<\/p>\n What if he said something like the following?\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cYes, these allegations are true.\u00a0 Growing up, I had never dated anyone.\u00a0 At this time, when I was 32, I was very socially awkward and immature, and\u00a0never felt I had anything in common with women\u00a0my own age.\u00a0 The incident with Ms. Corfman is embarrassing to me, and I was ashamed and vowed afterwards to be chaste.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u201d<\/p>\n How\u00a0would voters, pundits, politicians, react?\u00a0 What actions, albeit in the past, are unpardonable?\u00a0 Does it matter whether the individual was \u201cfound out\u201d at the time, and served time, for crimes, or was punished by the community in some other way (job loss, for example)?\u00a0 If the candidate you supported (not someone you didn\u2019t 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?\u00a0 Alternately, would you be willing to vote for someone whose skeleton was visible for all to see?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image:\u00a0 Roy Moore\u2019s date?\u00a0\u00a0from Pixabay; https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/restaurant-table-light-candle-710961\/<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I\u2019m trying to think through the whole mess with Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.\u00a0 For those of you who\u2019ve been living under rocks, he was revealed in a Washington Post article to have, let\u2019s say, gone to second or third base (depending on your metrics) with a 14 year old girl when he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":7670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[782,784,783,781],"class_list":["post-7667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dating","tag-politicians-wrongdoing","tag-public-penance","tag-roy-moore"],"yoast_head":"\n