Pass the Popcorn

Charlie Pierce finds the pearl of great price:

Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, opined that, should Moore win the Alabama special election in December, the Senate should immediately expel him—which, I guarantee you, would result in one of the most spectacular circuses in the history of that august body because, by all indications, Roy Moore isn’t going anywhere.

In an afternoon statement, Mr. Moore’s campaign described Ms. Allred as “a sensationalist leading a witch hunt, and she is only around to create a spectacle.” The statement, issued before Ms. Allred’s news conference in New York, denied again “any sexual misconduct with anyone” by Mr. Moore. Republicans here and in Alabama have been up in arms over the accusations, published last week in The Washington Post, that Mr. Moore pursued sexual or romantic relationships with teenagers when he was in his 30s. The reports have upended a race in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator in 25 years. In a fund-raising appeal, Mr. Moore reached out to his supporters with the subject line: “Mitch McConnell’s plot to destroy me.” “Apparently Mitch McConnell and the establishment G.O.P. would rather elect a radical pro-abortion Democrat than a conservative Christian,” he wrote. And Mr. Moore’s wife, Kayla Moore, lashed out in a Facebook post on Monday, complaining about “a witch hunt” in Alabama and claiming that “we are gathering evidence of money being paid to people who would come forward.”

If that’s his attitude now, in the teeth of a howling shitstorm, imagine what he’s going to be like if he wins, and The Washington Establishment declines to seat him. Fox News will have a field day and the Breitbart people, who already have two people on the ground in Alabama digging out the scandal of one of the accuser’s teenage telephone habits, will go absolutely insane. Where the president* would come down on this is anybody’s guess.

And if the Senate does allow Mr. Moore to take his seat?

Unless you think the whole Weinstein-inspired current state of affairs will be forgotten by Xmas, and the elections earlier this month were a passing fancy that will be forgotten with the rest, the GOP legislators declining to ride this storm out are going to look like the rats bailing off the ship just before the iceberg looms.

Pass the popcorn.