Roberts: Roy Moore proves Jeff Flake is out of step with today's GOP
Laurie Roberts: Jeff Flake tried to warn his fellow Republicans not to embrace Roy Moore. They didn't listen.
Laurie Roberts
I’ve heard over and over again from die hard Republicans in Arizona that Sen. Jeff Flake is not a real Republican.
It’s beginning to be painfully clear that Flake is, indeed, out of step with today’s Republican Party.
Case in point: Roy Moore.
Flake raised the alarm weeks ago
Flake was raising the alarm about Moore before his Oct. 24 announcement that he wouldn’t be seeking re-election and long before last week’s bombshell accusation that Moore molested a 14-year-old girl in 1979 while he was in his 30s.
While other Republicans were racing to endorse Alabama’s GOP nominee, Flake raised a red flag about the Steve Bannon-backed candidate in late September. This, because of a 2006 op-ed in which Moore wrote that Rep. Keith Ellison should not be allowed to serve in Congress because he’s a Muslim.
"That is a religious test, and Republicans shouldn't be OK with a religious test,” Flake told The Republic’s Dan Nowicki. “When somebody says something so fundamentally against our Constitution, then, yeah, Republicans ought to say something."
Cue the crickets.
Flake was still a voice in the wilderness when he took to the Senate floor on Oct. 31, a week after he announced that he would not seek re-election.
"When a judge expressed his personal belief that a practicing Muslim shouldn't be a member of Congress because of his religious faith, it was wrong,” Flake told his colleagues. “That this same judge is now my party's nominee for the Senate from Alabama should concern us all."
More crickets.
'This cannot be who we are'
And then, BOOM. The Washington Post on Thursday published accusations that Moore molested a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other girls, ages 16 to 18. On Monday, a fifth woman came forward, saying Moore molested her when she was 16.
Now the Republican Party -- the one that ignored Flake's warnings and embraced Moore's candidacy -- is faced with the possibility that Moore will be elected next month and … then what?
An unconstitutional religious litmus test didn't concern Republican leaders, fringe views and a demonstrated refusal to obey federal court orders didn't concern them. But a possible child molester as a United States senator?
Last week, after the Washington Post story on Moore hit, Flake called on Moore to immediately withdraw from the race "if there is any shred of truth to the allegations." When Republican officials in Alabama defended Moore – with at least one announcing he’d vote for the guy over a Democrat even if he is a child molester – Flake responded with a tweet:
But in Alabama, the base is rallying around Moore, who has vehemently denied the allegations of one, two, three, four, five women and decried "the forces of evil trying to keep me out of Washington." Presumably, the party faithful doesn't put much stock in Moore's hometown either, where people say it's long been an open secret that the man gravitated to young girls, according to the AL.com.
By Monday, Senate Republicans were tripping all over themselves trying to back away from Moore, who has vehemently denied the allegations.
No wonder the principled guy loses
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on Moore to “step aside.” Sen. Cory Gardner, the Colorado Republican who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee not only withdrew support for Moore but said he should be expelled if he’s elected.
"He does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate," Gardner said in a statement.
But presumably the far-right Moore did meet those requirements when he was ignoring federal court orders – enough that he was kicked of the Alabama Supreme Court twice? When he was referring to Native Americans and Asian Americans as "reds" and "yellows"? He met those requirements when he was proposing an unconstitutional ban on Muslims in Congress?
Had McConnell, Gardner and the rest of the Republican establishment listened to Flake a month ago and declined to get behind Moore, the party wouldn’t now find itself with an accused child molester hanging smack around its neck.
Meanwhile, the guy who sticks to his principles no matter the impact to the party, cannot be re-elected.
I'm talking about Jeff Flake, of course.
Roy Moore might well win.
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