The Liars that Lie and the Consequences of their Moral Ambiguity

Children tell lies. Poker players refer to it as bluffing. Politicians disguise their lies by simply saying “I mispoke,” a perfectly acceptable reasoning for an unenlightened, disengaged electorate who is more aware of who the current contestants of “The Bachelor” are than the elements of the tax bill that removes a substantial amount of deductions from working-class Americans and transfers those savings to corporations (see Citizen United v. FEC, they ARE people!) and wealthy individuals; they are the “job creators.”

A repugnant, vile, ultra-conservative former judge (let’s not mince words) held a wide lead over his opponent in the Alabama U.S. Senate race to replace and even more vile, repugnant, (racist) troll, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (a name by the way that sounds like a cross between a Confederate general and an animated poultry character, Foghorn J. Leghorn). Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, a man who was twice removed from the position, is a darling of the conservative and alt-right (racists) for his extremely outrageous pronouncements against gays, blacks, Muslims, and anyone else not white or male and within the sacred Christian hegemony.

Moore is a man of his times to be sure, a conflicted study in hypocrisy and purpose, bombast and bluster, or as Macbeth proclaimed in Act V, Scene V, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” He is the reincarnation of former U.S. Senator Theodore G. Bilbo, a person (not a man) whose segregationist views were so much outside the norm of racial views in this country even for his times, that he died in 1947 before the U.S. Senate could formally censure him for his vitriol and lack of basic human decency. Moore’s Christian fervor would be a tacit invitation for Sharia law in the U.S. should Alabama voters fully endorse his candidacy and elect him to the U.S. Senate.

Interestingly enough, Moore’s holier-than-thou view of himself does not seem to extend to his family members or his own personal conduct. This is where the veil of his hesome-sure-do-love-him-some-mesome wears thin. Moore’s son Caleb has been the subject of arrest nine times. He is 27 years old. Moore dismisses the errant behavior of his offspring, blaming political opponents for pulling stunts as a way to focus attention from his purity of character.

But wait, hold my beer!, as interestingly the apple doesn’t fall far from this hypocrisy tree. Moore, feeling himself as he heads toward an election slaughter of Democratic challenger Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney, was hit with a bombshell sexual misconduct charge stemming from neary 40 years ago. His accuser, 14 at the time, claimed that a younger Moore (who was a 32 year-old attorney and moralist in training) made inappropriate sexual contact with her and several other young women.

Let’s restate this so that the seriousness of this charge can truly take hold for those who are thick enough to believe that this type of behavior is appropriate EVER for a supposedly adult man and a child (a 14 year-old is a child). The accusation is that Moore initiated sexual conduct with a minor when he was 32. There is no place in society, in Moore’s bible, in the norms of any culture, that this type of behavior is acceptable from anyone who has held and currently seeks a position of power.

And now queue Moore’s defenders…

Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler rose to Moore’s defense quickly and solidified his place in the annals of time as the dumbest, most assinine faux theologian in our society (while also hurting Moore’s case further). All Ziegler needed to earn this honorific was to say to the Washington (D.C.) Examiner, “There is nothing to see here. The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”

Bad, right? Ziegler doubles down on his stupidity:

“He’s clean as a hound’s tooth. Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

These words needed to be memorialized not only for their lack of compassion, understanding, or context but for the way Ziegler showed how he is wholly unqualified to hold any position of authority and power while also doing nothing in Moore’s behalf but actually prove that the allegations are true. Way to go Jim Ziegler — winner, winner, what an idiot!

Fortunately religious leaders quickly rebuked this conservative clown and, as evangelical commentator Ed Stetzer wrote in the magazine Christianity Today, “If this is evangelicalism, I’m on the wrong team. But it is not. Christians don’t use Joseph and Mary to explain child molesting accusations.” Drop the mic on Ziegler’s clown head.

Three woman, two of whom went on “dates” with Moore, a 32 year-old man, accussed Moore of inappropriate sexual conduct. Moore’s defense? Vehemently deny the charges, then conveniently not remember the nature of contact with the 14 year-old, and claim to remember the names of the other two woman but not recall if anything of a sexual nature took place.

The manner in which Moore parses his words as defense of what others would consider abhorrently disgusting, predatory behavior, bordering on statutory rape (at a minimum, as if a statute is needed to define the deprave nature of a 32 year-old man putting his hands on a 14 year-old or any teenage girl) gives rise to one of the few times in my life I agreed with former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (the other time was on healthcare when he was governor of Massachusetts): “Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections…”

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My issue isn’t with Roy Moore, per se (it is but for a myriad of reasons, one being my extreme hatred of racists). He is the outgrowth of the cancer that has manifested itself in this country and captured the political imagination of a desperate populace — white males — who fee that political correctness, equal rights, (and Barack Obama) were some of the reasons why manufacturing plants left the U.S., costing them their former high-paying jobs.

The same plants, by the way, that have not existed in the U.S. since the 1970s as the age of technology ushered in the information age and a demand for higher skill sets than what were required of an aging blue-collar workforce, many residing in the Midwest and South who are, Christian, white, and fearful of a multicultural, globalized world, resulting, in part, with the election of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States in 1980.

What sisyphus have we been wrought with in this country that widens the appeal of characters like Roy Moore (and Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc.), cartoonish in their appearance but dangerous in their views toward others? Why does the rock continue to roll back to us after we push it up the mountain of change, electing a progressive leader in Barack Obama (to some extent, although more conservative than even Ronald Reagan in others), only to turn back to fear and writhing and elect Donald J. Trump, giving in to our banal desire for chaos and disorder in order to appease the uncomfortable nature of a minority that refuses to accept change and accommodate seats at the table for everyone, black, brown, female, transgender, non-Christian?

Roy Moore polls numbers have plummeted in the wake of the allegations but our creepy uncle’s resolve, bolstered by a healthy ego, has not. As his Republican colleagues jump ship faster than affluent male passengers on the sinking RMS Titanic push woman and children to the side in order to garner the few remaining spots in the lifeboats, Moore defiantly stands against his accusers, launching a credibility attack and receiving aid from his deplorable friends who are on a troll crusade (see ever clueless Sean Hannity of Fox News).

Moore may just very well win the election on December 12. Alabama, which is by far one of the reddest states in the country, has not had a Democrat in the U.S. Senate since 1997 (Howell Heflin, who was defeated by Sessions). National Democrats like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others have stayed far from the fray in Alabama, so as not to be tarred as opportunists and enflame the true partisans who even if they are disgusted by child molestation charges, place party well above country and principles. Should Moore become senator, does this hurt the Republican Party in the 2018 midterms?

The near-term and far-reaching ramifications of the Moore v. Jones special election race are unknown except to say the results are going to stand as a moral indictment on a country that so desperately announces to the world their moral authority in all matters. Alabama voters have a choice to make: break from tradition and repudiate behavior, which beyond the surface is unacceptable and has yet to be flat out denied by Moore, that is reprehensible and prosecutorial in any other context if not for the special election, or, continue the mudsliding that has gripped our recent politics and send a hypocrite and molester to take his place in the U.S. Senate to represent you.

Your move Alabama. We all are watching.