Roy Moore, the Republican Party's Senate nominee whose candidacy combines good old-fashioned bigotry with a bevy of sexual-abuse allegations, held a final campaign rally in Midland City last night. Steve Bannon was there, exhorting attendees that there is a "special place in hell" for Republicans who don't vote for Moore, as was novelty-cowboy-hat enthusiast David A. "Sheriff" Clarke, for some reason. Moore's beaming wife, Kayla, defended her husband against accusations of anti-Semitism by proudly noting that "one of our attorneys is a Jew," a statement that both drew raucous applause from the assembled crowd and drove a stake through the heart of political satire forever.

The evening's most astonishing remarks, though, came from one Bill Staehle, a man who apparently served in the Army with Moore while the candidate was a military police officer in Vietnam. Staehle, presumably, was there to make his friend look good, to humanize him, and to perhaps lighten the mood a bit as Election Day drew closer. In response Staehle recounted the time that an unnamed soldier asked him and Moore out for a few beers to celebrate the soldier's last night in the country. The man offered to take the pair to a "private club," which, Staehle assures the audience, was no cause for alarm, since there were "legitimate private clubs down in the city."

We got in his Jeep. He drove—he knew where he was going. He took us to this place that turned out to be a brothel. We walked inside—I could tell you what I saw, but I don’t want to.

Staehle grins broadly here, in case the implications of his statement weren't obvious.

It was clear what kind of place it was. Roy turned to me, and in less time that it took for someone to come up to us—and there were certainly pretty girls. And they were girls. They were young. Some were probably very young, I don’t know. I don’t remember, I wasn’t there long enough.

Why are you saying these words?