It’s in this article this morning on Breitbart reported by CBS as: “At a speech in New Hampshire Thursday night, GOP strategist Steve Bannon compared the accusations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore to the release of President Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” video during the 2016 election.
Well, sure, and no one is claiming that the video of Trump’s trash talk was anything other than true, real, actually said by the guy. This is the headline that is distilled from a morning spent following up on my diary here yesterday. In trying to validate the Post’s story, I got worried that may have jumped the gun, but now it’s looking more solid to me, so I can breath easier. This is still a big deal as I will continue to describe.
Like the other two women in this title, Leagh Corfman had been a private individual who had been known by some friends and family. Within a single day, like the other two, Ms Corfman will be a single human being whose actions and accusations will influence the course of history. She is the single individual who is named in this article, Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32, who was described as a victim of a criminal act, based on law in force at the time of alleged event.
This isn’t an overstatement if “Anita Hill” -- the person, the accusation, the judiciary committee hearing that bears her name -- had a different outcome, had her testimony led to Thomas’ withdrawal. During those few days this woman came within a vote of changing events, so that Clarence Thomas would not have been a Supreme Court Justice who cast the deciding vote on dozens of landmark decisions that have defined our era, reflecting as well as shaping values across the world.
While this essay you are now reading is not specifically about Donald J. Trump, to the degree that he is already an historic figure by becoming President, Leagh Corfman, central to the article, will ether enhance or damage what could be called “Trumpism” as a political, ethical and cultural phenomenon. To illustrate this, I’ll switch to my own reaction to the Post article, my being a liberal who attempts to transcend its truisms, actively seeking out diverse views.
As such, when I read the Post article with elation, writing about it on this liberal site as a celebration of the destruction of Judge Moore, the caricature of what the Republican party under Trump was becoming, complete with his bold Christian dominionist, pistol packing persona. I was elated that this article would be solid evidence that this State Supreme Court Judge was nothing more than a horny child-groping degenerate, and that such qualities are the essence of the ethos of Trumpist Republicanism.
For a while the reaction of Republican Senators confirmed my feelings, almost unanimously every one who responded repeating the identical words, “The actions described make him unqualified to be a United States Senator and, If true, he should withdraw his candidacy.” I focused on the caveat, “If true” thinking that the article was so specific, with multiple named sources, that given the high ethical standards of the Washington Post, are certainly accurate as they wrote it. In my liberal heart, not only was Roy Moore road kill, but the movement spearheaded by Donald Trump and his minister of intellectual validation, Steve Bannon, was on the way to a quick disposal in the “trash bin of history.”
How nice of the Kos folks to provide a cross out feature, so I can illustrate the process of my thinking that after four hours this morning I find isn’t true, that those attempting to refute the events described in the Post, either are sloppy or intentionally distorting the facts of the witnesses in the Post article
But that was yesterday.
While the Post article gave the names of four targets of Moore’s sexual overtures, only a single event was criminal, which was with Ms. Corfman. The article described her telling her mother being with at the time of her first contact with more, later her telling her of the offenses when Moore was becoming a prominent political figure. This alone, the victim and her mother ready to testify the accuracy of the story was enough for me.
Except, as I learned this morning, Ms. Corfman’s mother is deceased. So, it comes down to one person’s word against another, and right now, unlike Anita Hill or Monica Lowenski, Leigh Corfman has chosen to go dark, to remove her facebook and other social media pages, and not be available for interviews.
Donald Trump has based his political success on defaming the main-stream media, going beyond describing them as biased, but aggregating such organs as “fake” which means creating a story out of thin air. As of this time, one day after the Post article was released, it could be that this is an example where he is close to being correct.
Personally, I found Roy Moore to be antithetical to everything I value for a long time, which is why I wrote the essay here yesterday that celebrated the article that looked like it would nail him. In yesterdays essay (diary) I wrote:
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Take the time to read the Post article, every last word carefully written and fully supported by those who were there. If this does turns out to be fake news, a plot to defame a good God-fearing Republican, who is now supported by Donald J. Trump, then not only will Moore win the election, but Trump will be in solid with his base support even expanded,
But, when his fans, even Fox News can no longer deny this is factual reporting, there is nothing that Trump can do or say that will staunch the defection even among his core followers.
Trump was correct when he said that he could select a random person walking down Fifth Avenue and shoot him dead and not lose a vote from his posse. But what he can’t do is defend the defamation of woman who as a teenager experienced sexual abuse by a man who was an officer of the court. This is too much for even his most avid supporters.
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I still condemn, fear and loathe that Moore would advance a Christian extremism made of the same stuff as Wahabi Islam, Haradi Judism and other radical fringes of major religions . This country has been reshaped from it’s founding by intellectuals whom, if they had a religion, it was Deism, which was as close as you could get to atheism in that era with so much of what we now know without scientific explanation. We have, in defiance of our constitutional proscription, established the religion defined by law in our official motto, “In God we Trust . “
The challenge raised by the Post article in to break through to some of the core supporters of Trump. Donald Trump is in a bind. If he castigates Moore, he will loose the most extreme segment of his core followers. But if he fails to do this, if he sticks with Moore, then he will loose those of his core supporters who are more moderate.
Either way he is damaged severely by what has been disclosed.