How some can rationalize anything to benefit their own political partisanship

We as a society are going to learn something about ourselves Tuesday, regardless of the outcome of the special election in Alabama to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy from that state.

MOORE: Will one-time 22 point leader prevail?

That, of course, is the one in which Republican Roy Moore (a one-time judge of right wing sensibilities) ought to be the favorite to win. Yet the disclosures of Moore’s past attractions to teenage girls extending well into his adult years have some wondering/hoping/praying that Democrat Doug Jones can prevail.

WHICH WOULD HELP Dems extend their efforts to undermine the amount of Congressional support President Donald J. Trump can count on for his goofy whims of political fantasy.

Trump is fully aware of that, which is the reason why he has publicly endorsed Moore – saying the need to keep a congressional seat Republican is more important than any repulsion that one may feel toward Moore’s attraction to a 14-year-old girl back when he was 32 (he’s now 70).

Just as “the whole world is watching” back in 1968 when protests in Chicago became violent due to police behavior, the world will be watching Alabama on this day to see whether the political party that usually likes to think of itself as overly moral (it’s not, but that’s a debate for a future day) will back someone who, if he’d been caught at the time, could have faced statutory rape charges.

Considering he was an assistant district attorney in his home county at the time, that would have made it particularly repulsive. Moore ought to have comprehended the law well enough to know better.

WE’RE GOING TO see how intense political partisanship is over any true sense of morals amongst the portion of our society that lives in Alabama.

As it stands, the Birmingham News reported Monday on two polls – both of which show Moore with solid leads. A Trafalgar Group report shows 51 percent of people planning to or leaning toward voting for Moore, compared to 46 percent siding with Jones.

JONES: Can former KKK prosecutor overcome?

Another poll by Gravis Marketing showed 49 percent for Moore compared to 45 percent for Jones.

We’ll know by the end of Tuesday how close these polls are to reality, particularly since the ideologues most likely to put partisanship ahead of morals are more willing to cite a new poll done for the Fox News Channel – one that shows Jones leading Moore 50 percent to 40 percent. Which strikes me as a large number of undecideds still; and whose intent most likely is to scare right-wingers into turning out to vote for Moore!

MY OWN EXPERIENCE in watching government and politics is that every now and then, public officials and voters surprise us by doing the right thing. Putting aside their own personal interest and doing what is for the good of the people.

But those moments truly are rare and come as a surprise. So I’m not about to predict how Moore will do in Tuesday’s vote down in the Cotton State. As much as I’d like to think Alabamans would like to put an end to the number of nasty stories about how intolerant their region of the nation is, I’m sure some will be more than willing to add to it by giving Moore an electoral victory.

Now some in Washington, D.C., have said they consider Moore to be unfit to serve in Congress. Perhaps that has some thinking that even if Moore wins, he’ll be rejected and this vote is about deciding which political party will get to pick his replacement.

Although I’d argue that continuing to back someone like Moore (who with all the right-wing nonsense he’s spewed throughout the years was unfit for office even before all the stories about young girls started cropping up) shows Republican leadership in Alabama is unfit to have any say on the issue.

OTHERS, I’M SURE, have their own odd rationalizations. Such as one I read in a public comments section of the Birmingham News.

Are Alabamans eager to add to list of absurdities built up during Civil Rights era?

One reader says everybody needs to vote for Moore because a vote for a Democrat is just too harmful to our societal morals. “Pedophilia will be legal if Democrats have their way! It will become a Civil Right and be protected by Title IX,” one wrote.

Now if one looks up the definition of pedophilia, one learns that it relates to people who have sexual attraction to children 12 and under. Which means that for them, Moore’s okay because his attraction was to girls 14 and up. He's in the clear, morally!

That’s quite a rationalization some are willing to make just to win an election with an unfit official. One whose stain will be smeared over the nation as a whole if he prevails on Tuesday.

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Reynolds, the one-time “lotto” winner, faces sex-related charge in Africa

No, one-time member of Congress Mel Reynolds never actually won the Illinois lottery, or any other game of chance.

REYNOLDS: Won't go away!

It’s a reference to Reynolds’ alleged response (which came out during his criminal trial on charges that he had sexual relations with an underage girl) to the idea of getting involved with a Catholic school girl.

WHICH CREATES THE image in all of our minds of an adult male who can’t keep his hands off the young girls. An image that Reynolds seems to have reinforced this week with his arrest in Zimbabwe.

It seems that Reynolds, who represented the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs in Congress from 1993-95, got himself arrested in Harare. Local newspapers reported that Reynolds brought models and other women to his hotel room, where he used his camera to take pictures and video of them.

Technically, he has run up a hotel bill totaling the equivalent of $24,000 since arriving in Zimbabwe back in November. And his visa wasn’t authorized for such a lengthy visit.

But the charge that will draw the international attention will be the pornography possession charge – which is particularly harsh in Zimbabwe because the laws prohibit any kind of material that could be construed as sexually explicit.

FOR ALL I know, this very weblog has published things that could be construed as pornographic – under the standard that is being used in this particular case. Where it is questionable as to how consistently it is enforced by local officials.

A part of me wonders if local officials think Reynolds is trying to get out of paying his hotel bill, and they turned him in to ensure that he coughs up some cash.

A part of me also expects that he’ll spend a couple of days in a jail cell in Zimbabwe, before ultimately being deported from the country.

So much for the idea that he’s some sort of U.S. business executive who is advising other officials in this country about how to make money in Zimbabwe. He’s now going to be the U.S. sex offender who used an African sojourn as an excuse to take dirty pictures.

THE SAD PART of all this is that Reynolds seems to walk right into these incidents. You’d think he’d realize he’s in a life situation where his every miscue is going to get international attention.

We may not really care much about what happens to the one-tie Oxford-educated man who rose to a brief stint in Congress before his downfall in Chicago. But we are the type of people who will gladly use his gaffes to give ourselves a cheap giggle.

Which is what this latest story is about.

Personally, I think the story in and of itself is cheap, and that Reynolds wasn’t a significant enough figure (barely one term in Congress, would we care as much if it were Michael P. Flanagan who got arrested for something?) to deserve to last in our memory so long.

EXCEPT THAT IT allows us to recall his trial in Cook County Circuit Court, where the most interesting aspect was that the girl in question tried to refuse to answer questions about her involvement with Reynolds – which led the state’s attorney’s office to play legal hardball and have her put in jail for a few days for contempt of court; before she finally admitted what the Congressman did to her when she was younger.

There also are those of us of a certain generation who will always get a giggle from the phrase “Peach panties.”

All of which is why it becomes impossible for Reynolds’ memory to wither away into nothingness – which is what we really wish were possible.

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