At this point, only the most nakedly partisan observer could look at everything we’ve learned about Judge Roy Moore and assume that behind all the smoke there is no fire. Some are now attempting to throw the whole story out as a conspiracy concocted by the Washington Post with the help of drug dealers and crooked cops bent on revenge.

This isn’t reporting. This is campaigning.

https://twitter.com/MooreSenate/status/935883617313665024

Since the first allegations against Moore were revealed, there has been a race to poison the well by attacking his accusers. Partisans have thrown logic out altogether and have decided that anything politically advantageous to Democrats is automatically false and fabricated by a vast left-wing conspiracy. Even if one of Moore’s accusers has ties to drug dealers, what does that prove? How many criminals are locked up today based on the testimony of other criminals?  Being a bad person doesn’t necessarily mean everything you say is untrue. Being a Republican doesn’t mean allegations against you are necessarily false.

It’s reasonable to think that some of the many allegations may not be true, but we know from Moore himself that he saw nothing wrong with dating teenagers as a man in his thirties. Alabama pastors political hacks may cite how relationships like that were commonplace in biblical times, they’re not appropriate today and they weren’t back in the mid 1970s. At the very least, Roy Moore appears to be a gross human being.

It’s been sad watching so many people who I once thought cared about the character of candidates they support descend into jailhouse lawyering to defend creepy people. I remember when self-identified conservatives didn’t equate right with technically legal.