A dilemma for Republicans

OK, so now most of the Republicans -- the ones outside Alabama anyway -- are coming around to saying that they believe the women accusing Roy Moore and therefore they're calling on him to drop out of the race.

But what about the dozen-plus women who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault?  We even have the audio tape of Trump confessing to how he can just grab women, and they let you do anything when you're a star?

Why are they dismissed as "liars" -- all of them -- and not believed?   Is it just that Moore was going after teen age girls, while Trump assaulted grown women?  But what about Trump's self-described barging into the dressing rooms at teen-age beauty pageants, where teen age girls were in various stages of undress -- just because he could, as the pageant owner?    Does that count as sexual assault?

Maybe.    Or maybe this is all really about politics.   Until they get their tax cut bill passed, they need that 52nd Republican vote.   But it doesn't have to be Roy Moore.  Someone less "colorful" would do them more good.

Of course, their dream solution, which would solve two problems, is to somehow get Jeff Sessions out of the AG chair and back into his old senate chair -- so Trump can appoint a new AG that he can bend to his will and make Mueller's investigation go away.  They could run Sessions as a write-in candidate;   or, if Moore wins, then expel him from the Senate, and have the governor appoint Sessions.

There's one problem with that "solution."   Sessions may not want to give up being Attorney General.   It's his life ambition, what he's always dreamed of being.  The AG has much more power to change our country than a single senator.  He's already turned back the law enforcement clock by decades and made things much worse for civil rights.   But he thinks he's doing great work.  So he might just say No to that scheme.   Then what?

But -- let's talk about our dream solution.  Just let the election runs its course, with Moore as the Republican nominee -- and then have Democrat candidate Doug Jones win it outright.   I think he has a good chance.   Think what a Democratic win would do for the morale of the silent, suffering progressives in Alabama.

Ralph