In case you've forgotten, here's another Democrat accused of sexual abuse by multiple women

This feels a bit gratuitous, but I'm going to roll here with the tenor of our times, which says that if a few people have stepped forward to accuse you of sexual misconduct, it's at the very least worthy of news coverage. And all the more so if you're prominent, for which the one-time vice president and winner of 267 electoral votes in the 2000 election certainly qualifies. Also: The guy has turned into one of the world's biggest moral scolds. The left doesn't like it when "family values conservatives" turn out to be total sexual cads? Neither do I. But virtue, or its lack, takes lots of forms. When a guy is going around excoriating us for our treatment of mother Earth while at the same time he's pawing masseurs, I think we should at least have the whole picture of the guy's character, since we're asked to accept his ecological lectures based on little more than his word.

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So did he do these things or not? First a masseur told us he aggressively tried to assault her sexually during a three-hour (!) massage. And she took it to the police: Then three more masseurs came forward to accuse him of the same thing. But wait, some time after this CBS News declared him "cleared":

After Hagerty appeared in the National Enquirer claiming to possess damning forensic evidence against the global warming ambassador, Portland authorities decided to take a further look into the investigation and the case was re-opened July 1. Gore and his attorneys met with Portland police in San Francisco on July 22. During the questioning Gore told authorities that he remembered almost nothing about Hagerty, according to the memo. Hagerty's accusations first surfaced in late 2006 after her attorney contacted police, but she then refused to answer questions from detectives and asked to halt the investigation. No charges were filed.

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A 2007 police report said the accuser refused to cooperate with the investigation or report a crime. However, in January 2009 Hagerty gave a statement to police saying Gore attempted to have sex with her during an appointment at the swanky hotel, where she said Gore was listed as "Mr. Stone." As detailed in the memo, the case's dismissal was due to "conflicting witness statements, celebrity issues and lack of forensic evidence and denials by Mr. Gore." Investigators further claimed in the memo that Hagerty's accusations "did not merit further inquiry." It is unknown whether money was the motive behind the 54-year-old's claims. Apparently she failed a polygraph examination and refused to disclose whether she was compensated by the tabloid for her story. "After evaluating the materials submitted by PPB I have concluded that I agree with the assessment that a sustainable criminal case does not exist," the District Attorney said in a statement, according to CBS affiliate KOIN.

So let's talk about how CBS is using the world "cleared" in this context (and remember, this story is seven years old). The cops didn't say he absolutely didn't try anything untoward toward Ms. Hagerty. They said they don't think they can bring a sustainable criminal case. That is no surprise. There weren't any witnesses, there would almost certainly be no conclusive physical evidence, and even at this time the incident was several years old.

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If I'd been in their position, I probably would have also believed it wouldn't be possible to get a conviction in a criminal case. In no way does that mean conclusively that Gore didn't try anything sexually with this masseur, or with the others who came forward to make the same accusation. It's fair to say we don't know. That's true. We don't know. I don't know. But we don't know for sure what the truth is in the Roy Moore case either. What we have is a substantial number of accusers, which at least to me seems unlikely to be the case if the whole thing is a bunch of lies. Look as well at some of the other reasons the police gave for dismissing Hagerty's claims. One thing they were concerned about was Gore's celebrity status, and the fact that this might have provided a motive for an accuser to seek attention. Is anyone dismissing such accusations today solely because the accused is a celebrity? Just the opposite, the more famous the accused is, the more seriously the accusation is taken. I guess Gore's good fortune is that he was accused in 2010 and not in 2017, when the environment would be far more receptive to such a story, even if it came from an unfamous masseur. So does this story deserve a new airing in light of what's going on in the culture in 2017? If I didn't think so, I wouldn't have just given it one.

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