Friday, November 14, 2003

Roy Moore

Roy Moore, former Alabama chief justice, is a showboat politician. And he's positioning himself to be a hero/martyr spokesperson for the Christian Right. There's a lot of speculation that he'll run for Alabama governor. Or maybe run again for the state supreme court office from which he was just ousted.

Some Alabama observers think he may have loftier ambitions:

<< William Stewart, a well-known political scientist at the University of Alabama, predicted that Moore would have no desire to return to the state bench. Noting Moore's forecast of an announcement of national significance, he said, "I thought it sounded like president to me."

<< Said Auburn University Montgomery political scientist Brad Moody, "He no longer has to choose between building public support and being a judge. He can devote all his time to building support. ... Traveling around the country, speaking to various groups, raising money -- those are all things that potential candidates do." >>

The Mobile Register editorialized that Moore's grandstanding had "embarrassed Alabama" and even "cheapened the very cause of the Ten Commandments." And that "he has no right ... to so blatantly intermingle his faith with his public office" in defying a federal court order.

Michael Marshall, an editor and columnist for that paper, has been on Moore's case for a while now. He thinks that Moore's religiosity is largely a cynical act. Moore "is not a religious zealot," he writes. "He's just another media harlot."

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