- The Washington Times - Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Rush Limbaugh says “weaponized” accusations of sexual misconduct will be the new norm after Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore’s defeat in Alabama.

The host of “The Rush Limbaugh Show” told his millions of listeners on Wednesday that political opposition-research groups for the Democratic Party will use the election of Doug Jones as a template for defeating future Republicans. The lesson he claims they’ve learned, however, is that it pays to bury a candidate in an avalanche of unverified harassment claims.

Mr. Jones bested his Republican opponent (who was dogged by nine different claims of sexual misconduct), with 49.9 percent of the vote compared to 48.4 percent.

“If you’re in politics and you’ve ever looked at a woman the wrong way you can expect a woman, at some point, to go public and say so [going forward],” the host said. “In fact, because of the success Democrats had with this, it’s entirely possible that men who haven’t done a single thing in terms of mistreating a woman, abusing her or harassing her are still nevertheless going to be accused of it. It has become a political tactic.”

Mr. Limbaugh said sexual harassment is “a genuinely serious thing in its own right,” but feared Democrats will pervert the issue for political purposes.

“The use of sexual harassment and the mistreatment of women or others in the workplace is a legitimate thing,” the conservative talker said. “But it’s now just been corrupted and weaponized and made to look like a political opposition-research weapon.”

“You can see that when one of these allegations is made, the women are believed, and the men who are accused are not,” he continued. “The men have to prove a negative, and the accusers don’t have prove anything. That is a powerful weapon the Democrats have decided to use. And believe me, as we speak, they are behind closed doors creating further stratagems using this. And they are picking their targets. You’re going to see more of it, I predict.”

Moore’s loss on Tuesday cuts the Republican Party’s majority in the upper chamber of Congress to just one seat.

The 70-year-old former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice refused to concede defeat, although Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill told CNN that it was “highly unlikely” a challenge would change the results.

• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.

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