, Columnist
People Are Questioning Your Sacred Cows? Listen Up
There's good reason to scrutinize claims like the Roy Moore mall story. It's certainly not to protect a pedophile.
Banned from a mall because he preyed on girls? Beware of claims that sound "too good to check."
Photographer: Jonathan Bachman/Getty ImagesTwitter had a festive evening after the New Yorker ran an article alleging that Senate candidate Roy Moore was banned from an Alabama shopping mall sometime around 1980. His offense? You will be unsurprised by reports emerging now that say he had a reputation for trying to pick up teenage girls.
“Roy Moore was banned from a mall. Banned. from. a. mall” tweeted Jonathan Chait of New York magazine. And in the ensuing hours, I saw roughly one trillion versions of that statement. It might have been a quadrillion. I lost count.