Let’s see: Paula Jones claimed to be able to identify Clinton’s pecker by a distinguishing characteristic that it didn’t have. Kathleen Willey accused Clinton of having her husband and cat (!) murdered. Juanita Broaddrick testified under oath that Clinton didn’t assault her. IOW, there are healthy reasons for skepticism in all cases.
In Roy Moore’s case, really the only things that there’s any reason to be skeptical about are whether he sexually assaulted anyone, or whether he got illegally friendly with someone under 16. Like with Clinton, I’m willing to reserve judgment on this. However, the question of whether Moore, while in his 30s, made a habit of hitting on barely legal girls who were still in high school is a slam-dunk. Comparing anyone who doubts that with those who doubt Clinton’s accusers is bullshit bothsidesism.
I doubt it matters that much. Conservatism is evolving into an all-out culture war, and that’s not the kind of person that Richard Shelby is. But that’s the kind of person Roy Moore is. And the voters in Alabama identify with a culture warrior.
If you type in the words “impeach trump” in Google Trends, you’ll see that Alabama is ranked 45th out of 50 states in terms of search interest over the past month (49th out of 50 over the past year), meaning that it’s among the states where the search term gets the least amount of interest. I know that this is hardly scientific, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that there might be at least some association here. In other words, it’s among the Trumpiest of states in the union. And I’m going to suggest as well that there’s at least some correlation between the politics of Trump and Moore, despite the lack of an endorsement.
Moreover, we haven’t had any new allegations against Clinton. Democrats who are talking about their regret for supporting Clinton are just falling victim to the right wing propaganda machine. Clinton was dumb to lie about the affair with Lewinski but I can absolutely see why he did it. He had good political instincts and he knew what kind of hypocritical, holier-than-thou, do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do conservatives he was fighting against. He was fighting publicly pious zealots who were determined to ruin Clinton because of his position on abortion rights and because he was a white southerner who wasn’t hostile to blacks and other minorities, and he knew as well as anyone that the very things he was doing behind closed doors were the same things his accusers were doing. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of letting them use him as a victory in their jihad on American progressives.
Democrats and progressives today would be wise to take the same approach and tell the republicans to stuff it. But beyond that, probably their best approach is to let the media deal with the likes of Roy Moore and just stay the heck out of it. Democrats gain nothing by trying to get involved in a morality play. It’s just a giant distraction from other issues and they’ll end up in a circular firing squad if they’re not careful. They need to focus on defeating republicans on the tax bill, health care, and ultimately, in next year’s elections.
Yep, but it doesnt matter. The GOP is pushing “whataboutism” really really hard so that the Pervert Moore gets his seat. And even here on the SDMB, there are more threads and posts about Franken and even for fucks sake Bill’s “issues” than Moores criminal and pedohile activities.
Even the SDMB is a sucker for the way Rove and the Kremlin manipulate the news.
That’s how it works. Nate Silver opined that Moore might have bounced back because, among other things, the Democrats look like hypocrites now that some of their skeletons have come out, which I think is part of the story. But it’s really just about putting that “Both sides do it” thought in the heads of voters. The aim is to reassure voters that there’s not necessarily anything shameful about voting for Moore. Simultaneously, the message to center or left voters is that “Your guy’s probably flawed, too.”
The Thread in GD about Clinton was certainly not started by a resident right-winger.
But I’m still not sure your assertion is true or even meaningful. The Franken issue has considerable nuance to it, so there’s a lot to discuss. What is there to “discuss” about Moore? It’s pretty much an open and shut case, and I’m not aware of anyone* on this MB who thinks he’s a victim.
*I don’t know, there might the odd poster or two, but there is no groundswell of support for him.
Also, we’ve managed to corral almost all the discussion about Moore into this one big thread. (I take credit for having fortuitously bumped this thread literally minutes before the WaPo released its story about Moore and the teenage girls. :)) Just because there’s been more threads about Franken doesn’t really mean anything.
Somewhat off-topic from Moore, but: of course the quoted bit is only one isolated incident. But it seems likely that the relentlessness of the ‘don’t trust the media’ message pounded in by the right, is quite likely to affect not only “mainstream” outlets, but inevitably Fox and other right-wing media, too.
The Murdochs may ultimately rue the day they embraced that particular theme.
Well, if not then the timing is suspicious- and it does work out that way. The GOP is doing all they can to spread whataboutism until the Alabama election.
Yes!! Now I am a witting tool, undermining the coveted Dem-leaning Doper vote in Alabama, making them so distraught about Clinton and Franken and Conyers and all that Alabama Dopers will think Doug Jones is really a blend of all three, which they won’t be able to morally distinguish from Roy Moore, and all four of them will stay home on December 12, throwing the election to Moore!
Yes, my bothsidesism and whataboutism will do this!!
Look, Clinton has been out of office for almost 200 goddamn months, So *why the fuck *did you pick this month, the month when the critical Alabama election is coming- the month where it just so happens the GOP is spreading whataboutsisms like crazy mad?
I mean, why not next month? Or 10 years ago? or sometime where it might have been … oh what’s that word…relevant?
Franken is at least current news. But Bill Clinton? :dubious::rolleyes:
So, do you want to help the GOP elect Moore? Straight answer.
