Moore vs. Jones: Who's the Better Guy? My worthless two cents.

We're all way too familiar with this race to fill an Alabama Senate seat. I would like to take a different approach and put the political aspect aside and look at Mr. Moore and Mr. Jones on their merits and past deeds (just the highlights), without going into too much research, given.

Mr. Moore was actually a Democrat before 1992. He attended West Point and served in Vietnam in the early 1970s. According to his autobiography, his troops really didn't think much of him. Discharged in 1974 he went to law school and into private practice by 1977 as a personal injury attorney. In the early to mid-80s Moore worked as a prosecutor where he was investigated for "suspect conduct(???)" in regards to sheriff's funding but nothing came of it. In 1982 he unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for circuit court judge, losing a primary run off in a bitter campaign. Another bar complaint against Moore also came and went after the election. In 1986 he ran for District Attorney for Etowah County in Alabama and lost in the Democratic primary. Moore moves to Australia for a year, goes into private practice until 1992 where he becomes a Republican and gets appointed as a circuit court judge and wins the election in 1994.

In 1999 Moore wins a seat on the Alabama State Supreme Court on a slogan of returning "God to our public life and restore the moral foundation of our law." He became Chief Justice in 2001. His time on the sate supreme court is marked by controversy. Not controversy from legal decisions mind you, but religious ones. There was the Ten Commandments thing that would get him removed from the bench in 2003. Moore would get back on the State Supreme Court in 2012 and of course, more controversy. In 2016 Moore was suspended for putting his own religious beliefs above the rule of law when he failed to follow the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, where same sex couples were guaranteed the fundamental right to marry.

Mr. Jones graduated from the University of Alabama in 1976, got his law degree in 1979 and worked as an assistant US Attorney from 1980-84. From 1984-97 he was in private practice where he mainly dealt with commercial litigation and white collar criminal defense. Really underwhelming stuff. In 1997, Jones was appointed US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama by President Clinton where he would serve until 2001.

Who remembers the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park back in 1996? The man responsible, WHITE CHRISTIAN TERRORIST Eric Robert Rudolph, also bombed a few other places. One of which was an abortion clinic in Birmingham, AL that killed a police officer. Jones helped put together a task force to hunt Rudolph down as well as securing an indictment against him. Jones' big accomplishment was convicting two WHITE CHRISTIAN TERRORISTS of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963.

Watch Spike Lee's documentary 4 Little Girls for historical perspective. 

The FBI investigated the case and even named the culprits but no court proceedings were brought forth until 1977. I can only describe this is as a travesty of justice, it still falls short however. Seriously, watch the film and try not to get outraged. Over a decade after the conviction of Robert Chambliss, the FBI discretely re-opened the case and in 2000, Thomas Edwin Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were indicted on multiple counts of first degree murder. Jones was able to win a conviction against Blanton in 2001 after the jury deliberated for two hours. Jones would eventually secure a conviction against Cherry in 2002 on four counts of first degree murder.

Again, eliminate political affiliation. Let's go further and not include into the equation the fact that one candidate was banned from a local mall for trying to pick up teenage girls while working as a prosecutor. Now who seems like a better person to serve in the Senate? An attention seeking guy who was removed from the state supreme court for violating federal law, twice? Or a guy who helps bring to justice a cop killer and who convicts murderers of children?