At some point, every warrior eventually runs out of arrows. His armor wears thin yet grows heavier still. He must lay down his weary helmeted head for rest.
Even Coriolanus was forced to retreat — at the behest of his mother.
Not so Donald Trump.
Fearlessly, President Trump sauntered away from his wife and son into the presence of his enemies. As casually as Clint Eastwood dispatching a horse thief, Mr. Trump laid waste to the media’s carefully choreographed plot to wrest the U.S. Senate away from Republicans and somehow smear the president with an accused child molester.
Would the president throw in with Judge Moore and defend a man accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl he picked up cruising the halls of family court? Would the president place politics above honor and try some wink and a nod? Would Mr. Trump give in and torch Judge Moore so thoroughly as to ensure that Democrats get one seat closer to controlling the Senate after next month’s Alabama election?
“I can tell you one thing for sure: We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat — Jones,” Mr. Trump said calmly, referring to Judge Moore’s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones.
“I’ve looked at his record. It’s terrible on crime, it’s terrible on the border, it’s terrible on the military. I can tell you for a fact, we do not need somebody that’s going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the Second Amendment.”
But wait! This is a scandal. The jackals were trying to trick Mr. Trump into getting all hung up on the salacious scandal. He missed the banana peel. Instead, he responded by talking about — ISSUES!
Damned ISSUES!
Not only that, Mr. Trump responded by talking about issues Alabama voters care most about. The outrage!
Note how Mr. Trump did not endorse Judge Moore. He simply refused to endorse Democrat Doug Jones. Because Doug Jones is terrible on crime, the border, the military and the Second Amendment.
Sputtering and stammering, the hyenas take another run at their prey. Is Roy Moore a child molester?
“Well, he denies it,” said Mr. Trump, his glamorous family standing behind him, untouched by all the slime, magazine-ready against the autumnal leaves.
“He says it didn’t happen,” Mr. Trump continued, his overcoat flapping carelessly in the wind like a cowboy’s duster. “You know, you have to listen to him also.”
Asked again, from another direction, the president responded with a classically Trumpian line wherein he has but one point to sell you, so he wraps it up in a way that it actually looks like he has three points.
“Let me tell you, Roy Moore denies,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s all I can say. He denies it. And, by the way, he totally denies it.”
Who knows what happens. Maybe Roy Moore loses. Maybe he wins and Republicans kick him out of the Senate and replace him with a less toxic conservative.
The one thing that won’t fly these days is for Democrats to score political points by claiming Mr. Trump is turning a blind eye on a child molester just because he happens to be a Republican.
In this day, this storm, this environment, Democrats are too busy furiously defending themselves for 25 years of sticking up for a rapist and intern molester — all because he happened to be a Democrat.
• Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.
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