Larry Elder is going to have to address specific aspects of his ex-fiancee's allegations

I've deliberated all day whether to post about this. I first ran across the Politico account on my morning news perusal. But I see it's also been covered by The Hill, The Week and The Sun. Others as well, although I cite these by name because they are not the kinds of publications that are inclined to jeopardize their journalistic standing over sketchy accusations of gun brandishing and general sybaritic behavior hurled at a California gubernatorial candidate.

There was a time when Larry Elder was an articulate spokesman for responsible living. In particular, the corrosive effect of fatherlessness, and in particular among black American households, has been a subject he's emphasized in columns, broadcast shows and tweets. He could be fearsomely effective when going toe to toe against black pundits who peddled the collective-racial-victimhood line. His views on social issues are pretty run-of-the-mill conservative, perhaps even a bit more libertarian than, say, mine. 

Like so many right-of-center figures I'd once admired and considered go-to spokespeople for foundational principles that informed my worldview - Victor Davis Hanson, Bill Bennett, Dennis Prager, to name a few - he became enamored of Donald Trump, a lapse in judgement that considerably eroded my respect. 

Still, it was a surprise today to see that the personal-life shoe has apparently dropped.

Granted, Ms. Datig has some degree of axe to grind, given the acrimonious nature of their split. But there are two levels to her story: the broad outline and the minute details. It seems to me that Elder owes the voters of California, as well as followers of his column and podcast, a thorough refutation of the broad outline, if indeed such a refutation cn be mounted. 

Regarding Elder's alleged fondness for marijuana, I can't begrudge him that per se. It doesn't seem to have interfered with his work. However, it does not seem to have had the mellowing effect on him that advocates of weed mainstreaming put forth as one of its selling points. In fact, quite the contrary. 

The Politico account provides the fullest picture of how Elder and Alexandra Datig met:

Datig described meeting the ambitious talk show host in the early 2000s at bacchanalian parties populated by Hollywood celebrities like rapper Snoop Dogg and hosted by publisher Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. 

Elder, who has since taken to broadcasting in a robe a la Hefner in YouTube segments called “Robe Rage,” was “an A-lister’’ at the gatherings, Datig said. In one home video she provided to POLITICO, Elder brags about his relationship with Snoop Dogg, saying, “I introduced him to the evil weed… I taught him everything he knows...I’m the one who made him what he is, I can’t believe he turned his back on me, motherfucker.” 

And while she is now a conservative blogger who takes her addiction recovery quite seriously, she somehow, earlier in life, got mixed up in as tawdry a business as there is:

Datig, 51, became well known in Los Angeles in the 1990s as a leading witness and informant in the prosecution of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. Datig described being paid $10,000 per day and getting First Class air travel as one of the women who worked in Fleiss’s network. She has subsequently spoken out strongly against human trafficking.

Was all that behind her when she attended the bacchanalian parties, or was there some overlap?

It seems a tattoo became an issue between her and Elder:

Earlier in the relationship, Datig said, she was pressured repeatedly by Elder to get a tattoo declaring her to be “Larry’s Girl’’ — and even urged her to design one which included the Superman logo. 

She agreed to get it — after he said he would get an accompanying tattoo declaring his love for her, she said. “He never did,’’ she said.

I'm not making any politics-level prognostications here. It's not super likely, but it's entirely possible that he could replace Gavin Newsom as California governor.

My interest is on the level of integrity concerns. The question of greatest importance is whether Larry Elder is a phony. If so, the credibility that has made him the Sage of South Central goes up in a cloud of rich, pungent smoke.