Not that it will likely get much attention in suddenly snowy Alabama this weekend, but a new chapter in the saga of Roy Moore, Mall Stalker, broke out today as one of his multiple accusers, Beverly Young Nelson, admitted she added “notes” to a yearbook signature she said Moore inscribed back in 1977; she also promised to provide more proof of the judge’s authorship of the signature at a Friday-afternoon presser in Atlanta.
The yearbook signature was the principal external evidence of a relationship with Moore that Nelson offered in a dramatic November press conference with women’s advocate Gloria Allred in which Nelson alleged the then-prosecutor groped and sexually assaulted her when she was 16. The admission of “notes” was apparently spurred by repeated claims from Team Moore that the date and location following Moore’s signature were inconsistent with his inscription. But Nelson is not backing down from her assertion that Moore indeed signed her yearbook, and is thus lying in saying he had never met her.
Unsurprisingly, Moore’s supporters are treating this alteration in Nelson’s story as a “bombshell.” Indeed, because Nelson was invited to restate her position on Good Morning America today, Breitbart’s John Nolte is accusing ABC of being in on the exposed conspiracy to smear Moore:
[I]n yet another blow to the credibility of ABC News, the disgraced, left-wing network downplayed the bombshell by presenting this admission of forgery as adding “notes” to the inscription. Worse still, the reporter actually coaches Nelson, puts words in her mouth, downplay the enormous significance of her deceit.
Yeah, that’s how Nolte writes. Other denizens of the fever swamp are also treating Nelson’s new position as totally vindicating Moore:
Whether or not Nelson turns out to be telling the truth (and the odds of us finding that out definitively before the special election on December 12 are not good), she is hardly the only or most important accuser of Moore for sexual misconduct. That distinction would belong to Leigh Corfman, whose allegation that Moore lured her into his house and sexually assaulted her has not been refuted. Nolte’s take on that problem is revealing:
[T]he narrative behind her story, that Moore’s abuse resulted in Corfman’s living a troubled life of “drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt,” is directly contradicted by contemporaneous court records.
This effort to suggest that Corfman’s immoral behavior makes her unworthy of belief is classic victim-blaming. And there are others besides Nelson and Corfman who have documented Moore’s taste for teenage girls. Moore defenders can’t seem to decide whether to deny those allegations, or to say Moore was just reflecting the social mores of the time and place. Here’s Nolte taking the latter tack:
The age of consent in Alabama was and is 16. Moreover, 40 years ago, it was not at all uncommon in the South for a 32-year-old man to seek a much younger bride. So not only did Moore not break the law, he was not violating any social mores.
As a white Southerner who became an adult during the period in question, I am offended by the suggestion that it was cool back then for thirty-something officers of the court to trawl the malls for “a much younger bride.” It was the 1970s, not the 1870s, and it was real life, not a scene from Tobacco Road.
But depending on what fresh evidence Nelson can produce about her own allegations, this incident could help Moore with any voters left who have not already made up their minds whether to believe a group of women with basically the same story or a man who has twice lost his gavel for defying the law.
