Page 12A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 18, 2017
As sex scandals topple the powerful, why not Trump?
WASHINGTON (AP) — “You
can do anything,” Donald Trump
once boasted, speaking of groping
and kissing unsuspecting women.
Maybe he could, but not
everyone can.
The candidate who openly
bragged about grabbing women’s
private parts was elected president
months before the cascading
sexual harassment allegations that
have been toppling the careers
of powerful men in Hollywood,
business, the media and politics. He
won even though more than a dozen
women accused him of sexual
misconduct, and roughly half of all
voters said they were bothered by
his treatment of women, according
to exit polls.
Now, as one prominent figure
after another takes a dive, the ques-
tion remains: Why not Trump?
“A lot of people who voted for
him recognized that he was what
he was, but wanted a change and
so they were willing to go along,”
theorizes Jessica Leeds, one of
the first women to step forward
and accuse Trump of groping her,
decades ago on an airplane.
The charges leveled against him
emerged in the supercharged thick
of the 2016 campaign, when there
was so much noise and chaos that
they were just another episode for
gobsmacked voters to try to absorb
— or tune out.
“When you have a Mount
Everest of allegations, any partic-
ular allegation is very hard to get
traction on,” says political psychol-
ogist Stanley Renshon.
And Trump’s unconventional
candidacy created an entirely
different set of rules.
“Trump is immune to the laws
of political physics because it’s not
his job to be a politician, it’s his job
to burn down the system,” says Eric
Dezenhall, a crisis management
expert in Washington.
Now Alabama Senate candidate
Roy Moore, accused of assaulting
teenage girls when he was in his
30s, is waving that same alternative
rulebook.
Long a bane to establishment
Republicans, Moore is thumbing
his nose at calls by Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell and other
GOP members of Congress to drop
out of the campaign, and accusing
them of trying to “steal” the race
from his loyal insurgents.
As for Trump, the president who
rarely sits out a feeding frenzy is
selectively aiming his Twitter guns
at those under scrutiny.
He quickly unloaded on Demo-
crat Al Franken after the Minnesota
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
In this Nov. 15 photo, President Donald Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White
House in Washington. Trump is not usually one to sit out a political feeding frenzy. But now he’s
selectively aiming his Twitter guns at those under scrutiny for sexual misconduct.
“Trump is immune
to the laws of
political physics.”
— Eric Dezenhall,
Crisis management expert
AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
Kayla Moore, wife of former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S.
Senate candidate Roy Moore, speaks at a press conference Friday
in Montgomery, Ala.
senator was accused Thursday of
forcibly kissing and groping a Fox
TV sports correspondent, now a
Los Angeles radio anchor, during a
2006 USO tour.
Yet Trump has been largely mum
as Washington Republicans try to
figure out what to do about Moore.
McConnell and company have zero
interest in welcoming an accused
child molester to their ranks nor
in seeing their slim 52-48 Senate
majority grow even thinner should
Moore lose to Democrat Doug
BRIEFLY
Lebanon’s PM
Hariri leaves Saudi
Arabia for France
BEIRUT (AP) —
Lebanese Prime Minister
Saad Hariri left Saudi Arabia
for France early Saturday,
two weeks after declaring
his resignation from the
kingdom and sparking
speculation that he was
forced to do so.
The surprise resignation
by Hariri on Nov. 4 plunged
his country into turmoil and
stunned the Lebanese, many
of whom saw it as a sign the
Sunni kingdom — the prime
minister’s chief ally — had
decided to drag tiny Lebanon
into its feud with the
region’s other powerhouse,
the predominantly Shiite
Iran. Lebanon still hasn’t
recognized his resignation.
In his televised
resignation, Hariri cited
Iran and Hezbollah for
meddling in Arab countries,
particularly Saudi Arabia.
He also said he was afraid
for his life.
Shortly before he left
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
asked its citizens for the
second time in less than two
weeks to leave Lebanon
“as soon as possible” given
the “circumstances” there.
Less than a week after
Hariri resigned, Riyadh
ordered its nationals to leave
immediately, raising fears
of more punitive actions to
come amid sharp criticism
from Saudi officials of
Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in
Lebanon.
The announcement early
Saturday was posted on
the Saudi embassy Twitter
account. It came shortly
after the embassy reported
that it is closely following
reports of an attack on two
Saudi nationals in a Beirut
neighborhood. There was no
immediate security report of
the incident. Hariri tweeted
before he left Saudi Arabia
that any attack on a Saudi is
an attack on him personally.
Hariri, a dual
Lebanese-Saudi national,
stunned Lebanon and the
region when he declared
his resignation from
Saudi Arabia, sparking
speculations he was held
against his will and forced to
resign.
Russia again
vetoes chemical
experts in Syria
UNITED NATIONS
(AP) — Russia again vetoed
a U.N. resolution Friday that
would extend the mandate of
the expert body charged with
determining responsibility
for chemical weapons
attacks in Syria, dooming
its operation and making
it exceedingly difficult to
hold anyone accountable for
the deaths of hundreds of
civilians.
It was Russia’s second
veto in 24 hours of a
resolution to keep the Joint
Investigative Mechanism,
or JIM, in operation. And it
was Russia’s 11th veto of a
Security Council resolution
dealing with Syria, its close
ally.
Russia cast its latest veto
Friday night on a last-ditch
resolution by Japan to
extend the mandate for 30
days for further discussions.
It was supported by 12 of the
15 council members/
The first Russian veto on
a U.S.-sponsored resolution,
and Russia’s failure to get
the minimum nine “yes”
votes on its rival resolution
during a highly contentious
three-hour council meeting
Thursday, reflected the
deterioration of U.S.-Russian
relations.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki
Haley told the council after
the vote that the veto “shows
us that Russia has no interest
in finding common ground
with the rest of this council.”
“Russia will not agree to
any mechanism that might
shine a spotlight on the use
of chemical weapons by its
ally, the Syrian regime.” she
said.
Jones in a special election Dec. 12.
Trump did support moves by the
national Republican Party to cut off
money for Moore. But he hasn’t
said whether he still backs Moore’s
candidacy.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, pressed repeatedly on
the matter this week, would say
only that Trump “thinks that the
people of Alabama should make the
decision on who their next senator
should be.”
As for the allegations against
Moore, Sanders said Trump finds
them “very troubling.”
As for Franken, presidential
adviser Kellyanne Conway told
Fox News that Trump had merely
“weighed in as he does on the news
of the day” when jabbing at the
senator.
But Trump’s broadsides at
Franken served as an open invitation
for critics to revisit his own history
of alleged sexual misconduct.
Leeds, for her part, called the
president “the walking definition of
hypocrisy.”
Look no further than the bipar-
tisan howl that greeted Ivanka
Trump’s statement this week about
Moore for a demonstration of
the perilous crosscurrents around
Trump on the issue.
“There’s a special place in hell
for people who prey on children,”
Trump’s daughter told the AP,
adding that she had “no reason to
doubt the victims’ accounts.” She
did not call for Moore to leave the
race.
Liberals and conservatives both
pounced. Those on the left noted she
had waited a week to chime in and
had never given similar credence to
the claims of her father’s accusers.
Some on the right faulted her for
buying into unproven accusations.
Liberal movie director Rob
Reiner tweeted: “Ivanka believes
Roy Moore’s accusers. But the
more than 12 women who accuse
her father of sexual abuse are all
liars. The difference is? ...”
The sexual assault drama is
playing out as a painful sequel for
Leeds and other women who came
forward during the 2016 presiden-
tial campaign to accuse Trump of
harassment and more — only to see
him elected president anyway.
“My pain is everyday,” Jill
Harth, a former business associate
who claimed Trump put his hands
under her dress during a business
dinner in 1992, tweeted in October.
“No one gets it unless it happens to
them. NO one!”
It’s the same for those who
accused former President Bill
Clinton of sexual misconduct, their
charges once written off as “bimbo
eruptions.”
“I am now 73....it never goes
away,” nurse Juanita Broaddrick,
who accused Clinton of raping her
in 1978, tweeted Friday.
Allegations of womanizing,
extramarital affairs and abuse
dogged Clinton over the course of
his political life, culminating in his
1998 impeachment — and acquittal
— over his affair with White House
intern Monica Lewinsky.
He also agreed to an $850,000
settlement with Arkansas state
worker Paula Jones, who had
accused him of exposing himself
and making indecent propositions
when he was governor. The
settlement included no apology or
admission of guilt.
Leading feminists and Demo-
cratic-leaning groups stayed loyal
to him throughout — though some
are rethinking that stance now.
Even in the current charged
environment, when every new
allegation can produce screaming
headlines, Trump may well be able
to go his own way — and take a
hands-off approach to Moore.
“Trump’s base likes him when
he’s gratuitously ornery: Insulting
war heroes, Gold Star families and
the disabled have all been good
for him, so what does he gain by
strongly opining on Moore?” asks
Dezenhall. “Nothing that I can see,
so as a guideline, he doesn’t need to
do all that much.”