Well, did he or didn’t he?

It’s like the messaging of Roy Moore’s defenders is getting hopelessly mixed.

Yesterday, you were treated to the tale of Pastor Earl Wise, who called Moore’s accusers liars, suggesting they’d been paid, and at the same time, defended going after 14-year olds because some of them looked 20.

Time for “Pastor” Wise to crawl down from the pulpit and back into the Word.

Today’s entry into this sideshow of inappropriate responses that has become the backdrop to Roy Moore’s entire campaign is Pastor Flip Benham.

I’ll give it to Benham. He’s not coming off as hostile or obnoxious. He’s not attacking Moore’s accusers. He’s not even denying that the Roy Moore who served as the district attorney of Etowah County, Alabama in the 70s had a thing for teen girls.

What he’s doing is offering what I’m sure he hopes is clarity to the situation.

While speaking on an Alabama radio show on Monday, Benham pointed out that Moore always asked the girls’ mommies and daddies if they could come out to play date, and suggested that there’s nothing wrong with cruising the high schools for girls, in perpetuity, or something.

Said Benham:

“The lady that he’s married to now, Ms. Kayla, is a younger woman. He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that,” Benham told radio hosts Matt Murphy and Andrea Lindenberg in an interview first highlighted by the liberal media watchdog Right Wing Watch.

Benham and Wise need to sit down and go over their notes. Benham is cooing about the purity of young girls and Wise stopped just short of calling them all painted harlots that had it coming.

Benham’s closer was to blame the Vietnam war for Moore’s teen adventures.

Benham argued that when Moore returned from his tour of service in Vietnam with the Army, many of the women his age were already taken or married, and that there was nothing wrong with dating younger women with parental permission.

“All of the ladies, or many of the ladies that he possibly could have married were not available then, they were already married, maybe, somewhere. So he looked in a different direction,” Benham said.

So he had to raise a date?

Yeah. Whether the worst of the allegations are true or not, just this effort at a friendly defense, alone, should be enough to freak out those who are otherwise Moore stalwarts.