Another Moore accuser

The gist of her story:

Nelson is 55 years old (she turns 56 this week), and she and her husband supported President Trump. Her account is that she began working at Old Hickory House, a restaurant off of Highway 431 in Gadsden, Alabama, when she was 15. “I worked there after school as a waitress,” she stated. She continued:

Some nights I worked until 7 p.m. and other nights until 10 p.m. Mr. Roy Moore was a regular customer. He came in almost every night and he would stay until closing time. He sat at the counter in the same seat night after night, and I remember exactly where he sat. Mr. Moore was an adult. He was much older than I was. I knew that he was the district attorney in Etowah County, I didn’t understand what that meant, but I did know that he was an important person and I always treated him with respect. He would pull the ends of my red hair … He would compliment me on my looks, and I would think nothing of it. I was accustomed to men flirting with me, because I was well developed and competed in beauty pageants. I did not attach any significance to Mr. Moore’s behavior towards me, and I did not respond to Mr. Moore’s flirtatious behavior.

According to Nelson, she received a yearbook at school, and she brought it to work on the evening of November 22, 1977; by now, she would have been 16. She says that Moore offered to write a note in her yearbook, which she accepted. “I felt flattered and I said yes,” she stated. Moore then allegedly wrote in her yearbook a flirtatious note: “To a sweeter, more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977, Love, Roy Moore, Old Hickory House.”
She says that a week or two later, she was working at the restaurant and her shift ended at 10 p.m.; she expected her boyfriend to pick her up, but he was late. Moore offered to drive her home. Her account then continued, as she broke down in tears:

Mr. Moore was wearing brown hush puppies on his feet. He drove a 2-door car. I believe it was an old car, but I do not recall the model. I got into his car in the passenger seat and he began driving. I thought he would get on the highway but instead he drove to the back of the restaurant. I was not immediately alarmed as there was an exit from the back of the restaurant to the street, and he could drive there to my house without getting on the highway…He stopped the car. He stopped the car and he parked his car in between the dumpster and the back of the restaurant where there were no lights. There it was dark and it was deserted. I was alarmed and I immediately asked him what he was doing. Instead of answering my question, Mr. Moore reached over and began groping me, putting his hands on my breasts. I tried to open my car door to leave, but he reached over and locked it so I could not get out. I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping he began squeezing my neck attempting to force my head onto his crotch. I continued to struggle. I was determined that I was not going to allow him to force me to have sex with him. I was terrified. He was also trying to pull my shirt off. I thought that he was going to rape me. I was twisting and struggling and begging him to stop. I had tears running down my face. At some point he gave up. He then looked at me and said, ‘You are a child. I am the District Attorney of Etowah County. If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you.” He finally allowed me to open the car door and I either fell out or he pushed me out. I was on the ground as he pulled out of the parking area behind the restaurant. The passenger door was still open as he burned rubber pulling away leaving me laying there on the cold concrete in the dark. 

Sounds credible. That would be a lot of detail for someone to fabricate. Plus, she's a Trump voter.

Of course, she did herself no favors hiring the notorious Gloria Allred to represent her, and that fact has already figured in to dismissive remarks about her coming forward.

But consider the recollections of Teresa Jones, who says that "it was common knowledge" among the Etowah County prosecutor's office that Moore dated high-school girls and that "everybody thought it was weird." Then there's the lame way Moore handled himself in the Hannity interview.

The plain fact of the matter, and this is why I haven't posted much about this entire situation, is that no one has any way of knowing at this point how much, if any, of any of the allegations is true. Which leaves us with a lot of tiresome digging in of heels on either side of the want-him-to-win / want-him-to-go-away divide.

There's a really foul element on the want-him-to-win side of the spectrum that hangs its justification for its position on a "greater-good" argument. Ann Coulter says it's important to drag him across the finish line because he'd vote for a wall. (You'll recall that she said she'd be cool with Trump performing abortions in the White House if he followed through on his tough campaign rhetoric about immigration.) David Horowitz says he's essential because it's always essential to defeat Democrats.

But this is just a current crystallization of the boneheaded tribalism that passes for political engagement in post-America. The mindset that spurs Hannity and Schlichter to disparage a great mind and leader like Ben Sasse. The kind that gets Paul Ryan labeled a RINO or even a liberal in comment-thread rants. Every frustration or disappointment with any public figure warrants immediate banishment in the current climate.

We don't know enough to draw etched-in-stone conclusions about Moore, but the LITD position is that it doesn't look good. But to those who consider themselves conservatives who are utterly convinced that Bill Clinton was the Harvey Weinstein of politics and are now taking the Coulter-Horowitz position, and, conversely, those who are utterly convinced that we have irrefutable evidence of a tawdry past replete with actual assault when there is the possibility that he is completely clean are blowing smoke.

But, in 2017 post-America, that's no deterrent from weighing in at fevered decibels.