Right way and wrong way

There is no acceptable way for a man to take advantage of a woman, either by sexual abuse or sexual assault. Under any circumstances, it is wrong. It is always to be condemned, whether the assailant be priest, politician or pediatrician.

But, once exposed, there’s a right way and wrong way for the man accused to deal with it. The right way is to admit one’s wrongdoing, apologize to the victim(s), express one’s shame and regret, and accept the consequences. The wrong way is to deny it, lie about it, refuse to apologize, and attack the credibility and innocence of the victims.

What a difference we saw last week. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) did it the right way. Senatorial candidate Roy Moore continues to do it the wrong way. And so does President Donald Trump.

{mosads}With nine women now accusing him of preying on them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, Moore still not only denies any improper contact, he denies even knowing the women – even though he allegedly signed the yearbook of one and admits that he did, indeed, date teenage girls, but only after asking their mommy’s permission.

Moore doesn’t stop there. Their accusations are “not only untrue, but they have no evidence to support them,” he insists. And he rolled out leading evangelicals to accuse the victims of lying. “This is a man who does not lie. Compare that to his accusers,” Gordon Klingenschmitt, head of the group “Pray in Jesus’s Name,” told a Moore campaign rally. Calling out two of the women by name, Klingenschmitt turned the tables by accusing them of breaking the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

But, of course, in his denials and personal attacks against his accusers, Roy Moore is only following the playbook of Donald Trump.

During the campaign, over a dozen women accused Trump of sexual abuse. One of those cases is still pending before the New York Supreme Court. On the “Access Hollywood” tape, Trump even bragged about committing sexual assault, grabbing women by their genitals.

Yet, to this day, Trump dismisses their stories as “total fabrication,” and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters “the official White House position” is “that all these women are lying.” And then Trump has the audacity to condemn Al Franken for conduct he himself is far more guilty of — while uttering not one word of condemnation against Roy Moore. In Donald Trump’s world, sexual harassment is OK for Republicans, but not for Democrats.

We’ve seen a lot of hypocrisy in Washington: Republicans who claim to be deficit hawks while adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit; politicians who mourn the victims of mass shootings but refuse to do anything about it; Democrats who opposed wars started by George W. Bush but supported those begun under Barack Obama.

But Washington’s never before seen such rank hypocrisy as that coming from Donald Trump. How dare the nation’s No. 1 sexual predator accuse anybody else of sexual misbehavior? Doesn’t he know? People who live in glass white houses should not throw stones.

Press is host of “The Bill Press Show” on Free Speech TV and author of “Buyer’s Remorse: How Obama Let Progressives Down.”