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Monday, November 20, 2017

Bad Options

Why does our politics always seem to present us with two very unsavory alternatives between which we either must choose or effectively opt out of the political process?

In the last presidential election we were offered, on the one hand, a corrupt, deceitful, mean-spirited, reckless and feckless liberal progressive, and, on the other, an odious, deceitful, politically reckless, emotionally immature businessman who boasted publicly of vile behavior towards women.

Next month the citizens of Alabama are offered a choice between, on one side, Roy Moore, a man who has been accused of imposing himself upon underage girls 38 years ago when he was 32, as well as stalking and assaulting older girls, and, on the other, Doug Jones who supports a legal right to kill babies up until the time they're being born.

Those who believe Moore's accusers but who also believe in redemption, might be inclined to extend him the benefit of that belief after the lapse of almost 40 years were it not for the fact that they believe he's lying about his innocence today. Whether he is or he isn't, I don't know, but many commentators are assuming that he is, and I have to say that at least some of his accusers sound credible.

Nevertheless, among those who are expressing disgust and moral outrage at the reports of sexual abuse of women, whether it's perpetrated by the host of Hollywood sleazes led by Harvey Weinstein or politicians like Roy Moore or Senator Al Franken, there's one group of people who have no credibility whatsoever on the issue - the group comprised of anyone who supported Bill Clinton in the 1990s when the allegations against him were as thick as mosquitoes in a swamp.

These weren't just allegations of youthful indiscretions, they weren't just one or two unsubstantiated or ambiguous charges that could've been misunderstandings, they were numerous, consistent and included a very credible accusation of rape.

Moreover, no one who supported Hillary in the last election has any ground upon which to stand when condemning any of the current crop of abusers for Hillary was herself instrumental in discrediting whomever among her husband's victims had the audacity to came forward to accuse him. Indeed, she led the effort to smear them.

When MSNBC host Mika Brezinski now declares twenty years after the fact, and after genuflecting toward Hillary throughout the 2016 campaign, that Bill Clinton was indeed a predator and that she's done with tip-toeing around the fact, one can only think that, as John Sexton at Hot Air points out, had Hillary actually won a year ago Mika and everyone else at MSNBC would've continued to fawn over the Clintons as much as ever.

One further point: Among the allegations that've been leveled against Senator Robert Menendez in recent years was that he has patronized under-age prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, yet liberals still seem much more eager to hammer senatorial candidate Roy Moore for his sins of 40 years ago than to pursue the relatively recent claims made against Menendez who is a sitting senator.

Why? Because Menendez is a Democrat and Moore is a Republican?

If that's the reason then how sincere are their declamations of outrage over the degrading treatment of women in our society? Apparently not very.