Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore should have been disqualified from running for the Senate well before questions about sexual misconduct were raised, MSNBC contributor George Will said Thursday.
The veteran pundit noted that Moore has twice been tossed off the bench of his state Supreme Court, and argued that his record disqualified him from swearing an oath to the Constitution.
{mosads}”The charges of sexual predation are distracting us from something that happened earlier — that this is a man who has twice been thrown off the bench in Alabama for his dislike of the American Constitution, his refusal to — well, actually theocratic position that his religious conscience trumps the Constitution,” Will said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“Now, that disqualifies him surely from taking the oath that they take when they pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. But now we’ve forgotten about all that — we’ve forgotten that before the questions of his predatory sexual behavior came up, he was disqualified,” Will said.
“That’s a great point George makes,” injected host Joe Scarborough. “Even before that, I remember saying there’s no way conservatives should vote for Roy Moore. A lot of people — a lot of conservatives online were saying he was unfit because he’d been kicked off the bench twice.”
Moore, 70, is accused of sexual misconduct and assault by several women. One said she had a sexual encounter with him when she was 14 and he was in his early 30s.
“These are conservatives who keep saying the judiciary is all important — judiciary, judiciary, judiciary — and here’s a man who has discredited the judiciary,” said Will.
According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Moore holds a small lead over Jones in the Senate race with one week to go before the Tuesday election.