Probably no one, including Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker himself, would argue against the premise that the former football star is a deeply flawed human. He has lied, cheated on his wife, fathered multiple children out of wedlock and made a fool of himself while speaking in public. Walker’s party has tried to find workarounds for all that, but the latest scandal has far more volatile implications.
Credible allegations surfaced this week that he impregnated a woman and paid for her abortion. Walker adamantly denies the allegations, reported by The Daily Beast, and insists he is unfailingly anti-abortion — even in cases of rape or incest.
Republican Party leaders in Georgia and Washington have decided that the only option is to rally around Walker without apparently bothering to weigh the evidence, which includes a canceled $700 check and a get-well card to the woman, signed by Walker. The party has chosen to look the other way and deny, deny, deny — not because Walker is a paragon of wholesome behavior and unchallenged credibility (he’s not) but because GOP control of the Senate hangs in the balance.
When challenged by Fox News’ Sean Hannity about The Daily Beast report, Walker responded, “Well, I sent money to a lot of people. I give money to people all the time because I’m always helping people.”
A careful reading of that response shows that Walker is talking around the issue rather than attempting to explain why he would send a get-well card to a woman whose only health recovery at the time was from having had an abortion. The procedure cost $575, but she suggested Walker rounded up the payment to cover incidental expenses.
Republican leaders' responses were consistent with how they responded when Donald Trump’s gaffes and misdeeds threatened political upheaval for the party: They blamed the news media. And conservative evangelicals fell back on the same excuse they used for Trump: Everyone’s a sinner, so who are we to judge?
One conservative who didn’t go that route was Walker’s son, Christian, who blasted his father in a Monday tweet storm. “I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples (sic) lives.”
“Family values, people? He has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women,” Christian Walker said in a video.
If GOP politicians and evangelicals actually stood by their proclaimed values, they would at least bother to question Walker, as his own son did, before proclaiming his innocence. Instead, they blindly deny — because anything less risks losing a crucial Senate seat. So when it comes to solid-as-oak GOP values, it appears that politics (and hypocrisy) trumps all.
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