WILL DEFENDING ROY MOORE BE A #MAGA LITMUS TEST?

It was predictable that Roy Moore would be defiant in the face of allegations that he fondled a 14-year-old girl and was involved with other teenagers when he was a thirtysomething assistant district attorney given the fact that defiance has been Moore's reaction to all criticism throughout his career. Here's part of a statement he released today:

"Judge Roy Moore has endured the most outlandish attacks on any candidate in the modern political arena, but this story in today's Washington Post alleging sexual impropriety takes the cake. National liberal organizations know their chosen candidate Doug Jones is in a death spiral, and this is their last ditch Hail Mary....

"Judge Roy Moore is winning with a double-digit lead. So it is no surprise, with just over four weeks remaining, in a race for the U.S. Senate with national implications, that the Democratic Party and the country's most liberal newspaper would come up with a fabrication of this kind...."

And it's not really surprising that fellow Alabama Republicans would imply that the Good Lord would look kindly on Moore's fondness for teenagers:

“There is nothing to see here,” Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner....

“Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”

But now we have an out-of-state Moore defender, and it's someone you've met before on this blog: Paul Nehlen, who put up a primary challenge to Paul Ryan in 2016 and briefly became the toast of Breitbart:



Nehlen would go on to lose the primary 84%-16%, and not just because he made this dorky ad in which he tries and fails to look like an American badass:



He's running against Ryan again in 2018, and he announced today that has Roy Moore's back:

Paul Nehlen told The Gateway Pundit today:

“I’m calling bullshit on the Judge Moore accusations,” says Paul Nehlen, the true conservative challenger to Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district. “This is a desperate ploy by Mitch McConnell using the Paul Ryan / Dan Senor playbook utilized to bring down candidate Trump with the Billy Bush tapes. It didn’t work with Trump, it won’t work with Moore.”

McConnell has said that Moore should step aside "if these allegations are true." But note the reference to Dan Senor. That's becoming a favorite name to drop when you want to accuse Republicans of being deep state swamp creatures who are just as bad as Democrats and the liberal media. (Roger Stone invoked Senor when it was revealed that GOP donor Paul Singer was an early financier of Fusion GPS's anti-Trump opposition research.) I assume the entire #MAGA crowd will fall in lockstep -- Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham, and the rest, all arguing that this is a deep state/cuckservative/Bush family/George Soros hit job.

And while we're on the subject of Gateway Pundit, here's Jim Hoft with a deep dive into the statute books:

According to the Code of Alabama 1975 list of rules (Section 13A-6-69.1) it was a crime to have sex with a minor 12 or under....

The legal age of consent was later raised to 16 in Alabama.

So, y'know, it was totally cool.

Coming soon, I predict: Moore didn't want to grope teenage girls, but '60s/'70s culture made him do it!