I believe or disbelieve based on a ton of variables. Not blindly. Not 100% of all of them all of the time, as you're implying.
When you're approaching a baker's dozen women all with very similar stories that show the accused has a particular M.O. (high school girls), and the claims themselves are credible and believable, and their stories are backed up by even circumstantial evidence, while multiple of the accused's defenses are DISPROVEN, I tend to believe the victims.
inB4 "THER'S NO GOTDAM EVIDENCE YOU BRAYING IDIOT!"
1. Moore said "I don’t know Miss Corfman from anybody. I never talked to her. I’ve never had any contact with her." The accuser and her mother said he introduced himself by name outside of his office in the courthouse in February 1979. Legal documents prove they were in fact there, after they made that statement. Multiple friends also back up that she told them this at the time and recall them "dating" shortly after. An ex boyfriend also said she had told him when they were dating decades ago that she had "dated" Moore as a teenager.
All apocryphal.
You and I both have introduced ourselves to hundreds of people. Men, women, children, pets. So what? He was a public figure and even more likely than we are to speak to people.
There's no credible evidence they ever had any contact whatsoever other than people who "think they remember..."
So what if they were at the courthouse? Don't you think the Post concocted that and made sure they could create that tenuous string of circumstantial evidence?
I was at a Comicon with Katrina Law. I took photos with her. On some of them you can't see my hands. She wrote me a very sweet and extremely specific note telling me how awesome I was and how much she enjoyed meeting me.
She raped me. Can I please have a tearful press conference? Please?
BUT WHY COME OUT ALMOST 40 YEARS LATER??? The other side of that same coin is that in order to believe she is making it all up to sabotage his Senate campaign is she would have had to have prepared her attack way back then planting false memories in the heads of everyone who stated on record that they recalled him hanging around.
It's the fucking lemming effect, CZ. How can you not see this?
WaPo coerces (or financially encourages) one person to make up some shady shit and then starts calling people saying "We spoke with Bitchy McDrizzlehole and she said that in 1979, Roy Moore was a fixture around the Gadsden Mall where he made inappropriate advances toward teenage girls. Do you recall anything like that? "
2. When Hannity asked him if he ever "dated anybody that was in their late teens like that when you were 32", Moore replied "It would have been out of my customary behavior." Seven accusers and counting, none of whom knew eachother, beg to fucking differ. Miller, the 16 year old whose mother did not allow the relationship and said quote: "Let's not rob the cradle." MULTIPLE firsthand and secondhand accounts on the record about him trolling for teen pussy at the Gadsden mall. For example "It was common knowledge that Roy dated high school girls" and "We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall" from Teresa Jones. The whole goddamn town is lying about what was common knowledge, by your estimation. And note that those stories were from AL.com, not the Post.
Seven frauds.
Only one of which could be definitely considered under the age of 18. The rest "think" or "could have been..." None of them can say with absolute certainty they were under age. Only that they think they mass remember something.
"It was common knowledge..."? Yeah. Bullshit. Even the al.com reporters who are in full attack mode and tried their DAMNDEST to dig something up on Roy numerous times over the last decade admit in a moronic video statement that they never once heard any fucking thing of the sort.
And he said himself "I don’t remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother". Is that not gross in and of itself? Is that not an outright admission that he dated girls young enough that they needed to get an ok from their parents first? Corroborates Miller's mom's story, since she had the sense to tell him to fuck off.
You're a hysterical woman.
It was common practice in that day and time to ask permission before you asked a girl out. Especially for someone who was of his age/era and a war veteran. It was the honorable thing to do.
When I was 18 I had a thing for this girl who was 15 going on 16. Before I asked her out I went to her parents and told them I wanted to take her out. They asked me for specifics of when and where and then asked me if I would agree to have dinner at their house prior to the date so they could get to know me a little better. I did and her dad even checked my car out to make sure it was safe before he let me take her to the movies.
I know things were different for you, but fuck's sake, man, asking the mom was the genteel thing to do.
You can't prove he knew the girl was 16 prior to asking his mom. All you know is that when he found out, he didn't ask again.
Moore himself said the CLAIMS from Deason and Gibson were "altogether appropriate". Gibson was 17 when he asked her out and kissed her in his bedroom and Deason was 18 but still in high school when he took her out and boozed her up. Again, he was THIRTY-FOUR at the time. He doesn't deny this or even think the ALLEGATIONS describe anything inappropriate. Do you?
A. I don't believe Debbie Gibson was 17. I don't believe she remembers shit or shinola accurately. She is damn near 60 and trying to remember one day out of hundreds. For all I know she's merging two or three different incidents with different guys and creating a memory composite.
B. I've told you this a hundred fucking times. I don't care. He was a war veteran in a small town with a very limited dating pool. A single, attractive guy considered a good catch in an era when it was just as important for a young southern girl to snag herself a successful man than it was for her to create her own career.
Would I date somebody that much younger than me? Fuck if I know. Maybe. I would now, for sure. Don't know that I would have at 34.
Still, you simply CANNOT apply today's lenses to something that happened 40 years ago. Less than 100 years ago it was common motherfucking practice for teenage girls to pursue and marry men in their 50s. It was an honorable thing, an expected thing.
What about Jerry Seinfield? When he was 39 he was dating a 17 year old. In public.
If the parents are okay with it, the girl is okay with it? It's not my place to judge. Or yours.
3. Corfman also said he boozed her up when she was under age. He told Hannity it wasn't possible because Gadsden was in a dry county that "never would have had liquor". False. The county legalized alcohol sales in 1972, seven years before these allegations, back when Corfman, presumably was even too young for Moore at seven years old. The post confirmed alcohol was for sale at the specific pizzaria at the time of the accusation.
Oh horseshit. Moore isn't much of a drinker and from what I've seen and heard never has been. She may have boozed it up at whatever place this is, but she didn't do it with Roy.
4. We already discussed this, but the yearbook. He'd never heard of her or the restaurant, and yet he signed her yearbook, with notes about how sweet and beautiful she was ( ) and signed the name of the goddamn restaurant.
Bullshit. Nonsense.
The name of the restaurant was OBVIOUSLY AND CLEARLY added after the fact and in a completely different handwriting. Even a child can see that.
You have to look no further than the 7's.
You should see what Katrina Law wrote on the autograph she gave me. Before she raped me.
No, none of that proves beyond any reasonable doubt in a court of law that he's guilty. But it's a lot of fuckin' smoke. If these women's stories fell through like Moore's have repeatedly with countering evidence (dry county, didn't normally date teens, etc.), while Moore's stories were backed up like the victims' (the courthouse, the yearbook, etc.) you guys would be screaming til you were red in the face about how the circumstantial evidence was rock solid undeniable proof of innocence.
Cam Newton says you can go fuck yourself.