Photo: CNN

If Roy Moore loses on Tuesday, he can at least say his campaign went out in a blaze of extremely uncomfortable bigotry.

Hours after the Republican candidate (badly) maneuvered a horse to the polls in the Alabama special election, his spokesman Ted Crockett appeared on CNN’s The Lead to … well, it’s not clear what the purpose of his appearance was, other than to amplify the country’s already sullied opinion of his boss.

The lowlight of the interview arrived when Jake Tapper pressed Crockett on whether Moore still believed homosexuality should be illegal, which he did in 2005.

Ted Crockett (Roy Moore's spokesman) may be the most inept communicator I've ever seen on television. This @jaketapper interview is a must watch https://t.co/NeuaBamER9 — Ted Hamlin (@TedHamlinDC) December 12, 2017

After some dissembling, Tapper asked again, and Crockett landed on his ultimate answer: “Probably.” Good to know!

Tapper then segued to one of Moore’s other most outrageous claims: that a Muslim should not be allowed to serve in Congress. He asked Crockett why Moore believed such a thing.

Roy Moore campaign spokesman responds with silence when asked if he knew people can be sworn in with a text other than the Christian bible pic.twitter.com/B65qIKBjlI — The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) December 12, 2017

“Because you have to swear on the Bible,” Crockett said. “You have to swear on a Bible to be an elected official in the United States of America.”

“You don’t actually have to swear on a Christian Bible,” Tapper retorted. “You can swear on anything.”

Crockett disagreed with that true assessment, but Tapper repeated, “The law is not that you have to swear on a Christian bible. That is not the law.”

What followed was a silence the length of which is not usually seen on TV except in case of technical difficulties, or a PBS screening of a John Cage concert. It was interrupted only by Jake Tapper asking, incredulously, “You don’t know that?” By the time Crockett finally got a word in, Tapper was ready to wrap up the interview.

You don’t know that, indeed.