ROY MOORE IS GOING TO WIN

Judge Roy Moore

The decision of Senate leaders to have the Senate Ethics Committee “investigate” the charge of sexual harassment against Sen. Al Franken is a blunder for which the good guys should make the bad guys pay dearly.

What’s to investigate? The photo (taken by Al’s brother) proves beyond a shadow of a doubt he felt up Leeanne Tweeden while she was sleeping. Franken admitted it, though he claims it was just innocent fun.

All there is to decide is if feeling up a sleeping woman is an offense grave enough to warrant expulsion from the Senate.

If it isn’t, the hypocrisy with regard to the treatment of Roy Moore is glaringly obvious.

If it is, the fact McConnell et al think the charge against Franken should be investigated before any action is taken against him offers Moore a clear line of attack/defense.

Moore should applaud the Senate for investigating the charge against Franken before passing judgment on him, even though there’s no doubt whatsoever that Franken did what he did. Due process and all that.

After Moore’s elected, he’ll demand the Senate Ethics Committee investigate the charges against him, because he’s confident an investigation will prove they are baseless, Moore should say. And he should ask:

Why hasn’t there been a Senate Ethics Committee investigation of Robert Menendez, since the feds had enough evidence to indict him?

Among the things the feds said Menendez did was attend sex parties with underage prostitutes. That’s  actual evidence of sexual misconduct — while that produced by Moore’s accusers is squat.

The jury in the Menendez trial hung. But if, as McConnell et al claim, the Senate has a higher standard for its members, there’s more than enough evidence to kick Menendez out.

Congress should release the names of the 260 Senators, Representatives and staffers on whose behalf sexual harassment claims totaling $15 million have been paid out over the last 20 years, Moore should demand. McConnell and Ryan, stop covering up for sexual predators!

 Melanie Morgan, a second Franken accuser, wonders why Congress doesn’t apply to itself the same sexual harassment laws that apply to the rest of us. That’s a very good question. Moore should ask it, and say that when he gets to Washington, he’ll introduce legislation to make that happen.

Finally, at the news conference where Moore demands the names of sexual harassers in Congress be made public, he should show videos of creepy Uncle Joe Biden feeling up little girls at public events, wonder why no one in Congress ever criticized him for it.

I imagine McConnell and Schumer did the Ethics Committee dodge because there are more than a few Senators on both sides of the aisle who don’t want the precedent set that a Senator must resign just because he harassed a woman or two.

But Franken was dead meat once that photo was published. And so may be the smear campaign against Roy Moore.

From this point forward, Moore should be entirely, unapologetically on offense. He should waste no time answering charges, spend all of it making them. If he’s an innocent man wronged, he should act like an innocent man wronged.

From this point forward, the election should be David vs. Goliath, the people of Alabama against the D.C. swamp.

The Swamp Things, Republican as well as Democrat, smear him because they know he’ll never join their club, Moore should say.

If he campaigns this way, Moore can win. If he does, McConnell and the GOPe are finished.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement in January 2017, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.