at Slate, which is subtitled “Republicans offer a sham defense of Roy Moore.”.
The piece is not all that long, but it is very thorough.
You get a sense from the brief opening paragraph:
The battle within the Republican Party has come down to this: Is it OK for a 32-year-old man to seduce a 14-year-old girl?
As far as folks like the President noting Moore’s denials, Saletan writes
Moore’s denials are designed to provide cover for Trump, Sean Hannity, Alabama’s Republican congressmen, and others who don’t want to acknowledge Moore’s sins. But factually, the denials have already collapsed. It’s time to sweep them out of the way.
He points out that presumption of innocence until otherwise proven in a court of law is irrelevant because the statute of limitations on criminal offenses from the time period in question have expired, and there is no chance of getting Moore under oath (unless he were to mistakenly file suit against any of the women which would subject him to being deposed under oath. If he ever does do that, it certainly will not happen between now and the December 12 election).
So anyone who tells you to ignore the allegations until they’re validated in court is telling you, in effect, to ignore them forever.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t measure Moore’s credibility against the credibility of his accusers. We can check both sides’ stories against the available evidence. On one test after another, Moore fails.
Saletan provides five tests, and for each he gives detailed explanations of why Moore fails on that test. The five are
1. The accusers — Saletan notes the number has gone from 4 to 9, that several are self-described Trump voters, which makes it clear that Moore defenders who want to dismiss them as part of a “liberal plot” make no sense.
2. Supporting witnesses — including siblings, friends, mothers.
3. Documents — which support the allegations and disprove some of the counter claims offered by Moore’s defenders.
4. The Yearbook. Moore challenges its use, and on this I want to quote part of what Saletan offers:
Why, he asks, are the exact date and place where he ostensibly signed the yearbook written below his name “in a style inconsistent with the rest of the yearbook inscription”? That’s a good question. It’s possible that somebody else appended those details. But what’s striking is that Moore doesn’t challenge the inscription itself. He can’t dispute that it bears an uncanny resemblance to his handwriting on other documents. An expert consulted by the Post observes that the script flows without interruption, which would be hard for a forger to do.
5. Confessions. Here Saletan includes Moor’s recollection of first noticing his now wife, and of one accuser, Nelson, who was a classmate of Moore’s wife,
And though Moore told Hannity he did “not generally” date teenagers while in his 30s, he also denied “dating any girl without the permission of her mother,” which suggests that the girls were young. That fits the story told by Wendy Miller’s mother, who says she rejected Moore’s request to date her 16-year-old daughter.
There is more, much more, in this piece, which might usefully be bookmarked for reference, and which should certainly be shared with anyone persuadable in Alabama.
Let me close with the final paragraph:
Like anyone else accused of wrongdoing, Moore began with a presumption of innocence. But he has forfeited it. His assertions are demonstrably false. Too many witnesses, documents, and self-incriminating statements have discredited him and substantiated the case against him. You can still plead, as Trump does, that voters should look past the allegations because Moore “totally denies” them. But that’s not a serious argument. It’s an excuse to ignore what Moore did.
Now go read it and pass it on.