I am horrified by the picture and the accusations. Truly, I am. But after the visceral reactions have faded, I feel more confident in thinking that Sen. Franken is definitely not in the same league as Roy Moore, the President, or Harvey Weinstein, or Louie C.K.
First of all -- and you may not like this, even though I consider myself fairly liberal -- there are shades of gray to all things. Sticking your tongue down a woman's throat without her permission and pretending to grope her while she is sleeping is disgusting and hurtful. But while it is sexual assault -- and the woman, Leeann Tweeden, has the right to decide whether or not it is -- that pales in comparison to having a history of hitting on teenagers when you're a 30-year-old district attorney (such as Moore), getting caught on tape saying that he could get away with touching a girl's pussy (such as Trump), bullying women into massaging him and then threatening to end their careers if they talked (such as Weinstein), or even masturbating in front of women without their permission (such as C.K.). There is a difference. I am not going to say that it's hypocritical to defend Franken while demanding Trump to be impeached. Sexual assault is not sexual assault is not sexual assault. And zero tolerance will only lead to false equivalence.
Second of all -- and I might lose more of you here -- this happened before he became a senator. I saw one tweet that went something like, "Your current accomplishments cannot wash away your past indiscretions." If that's the case, then no one's redeemable. For fuck's sake, he was a comedian! He was a writer on Saturday Night Live back in its infancy, a time where, I hear, there were a lot of stories about the staff there acting inappropriately. To be honest, with his history I am surprised as shit he was elected senator -- and frankly, if more stories like this came about from those days, that's when there would be so much baggage with him where I would change my mind and say he has to step down now. But whatever his behavior towards Tweeden or any other woman in the past, he has been a consistent champion of women's rights (reproductive, workplace, sexual assault) now that he's a senator. If that photo came out while he was running against Norm Coleman, he wouldn't have had the chance to redeem himself. But the reality is is that he has. So, as repugnant as his past actions are -- and they are repugnant -- I cannot just ignore all the good he has done for women in his current role. As is, I can forgive the past.
"So," Republican critics/straw men would say, "how come you forgive Franken for his past and not Moore for his?" That leads me to my third point, and I will lose even more of you when I admit this: We need him in the Senate. We need to be pragmatic here; Republicans, who believe that they control women's bodies, don't care if women get paid significantly less than men, and think that rape is the woman's fault, will pop the champagne if they get Franken run out of town. You may not like Franken's actions, but forcing him to leave the Senate only gives power to people who think women are inferior to men and have no problem acting laws to codify that subjugation. You think keeping a sexual assaulter in the Senate is bad now? Just wait until you let a whole party of them run Congress (although, since Republicans control both houses, they sort of do run Congress). A Senate with Franken (who, BTW, I hear is kind of a dick) is a hell of a lot better for our side -- the morally correct side -- than one without him. For the politics alone, he has to fucking stay.
Oh, and my final reason, one that comes into focus only with the patience that comes with the setting of the sun: This was a hit. A tweet by a cocksucker of Roger Stone, crazy Republican cheap shot artist (who was permanently banned from Twitter for threatening CNN anchor Don Lemon) alluded to Franken getting busted for this. That tweet came out between twelve and 20 hours before Tweeden released her statement. Tweeden is also a diehard Republican who has appeared on Hannity from time to time. I'm not saying she made this up; the photo alone is ample evidence to believe her story. But between her political leanings, the smoking gun/tweet, and the Russian bots who keep whipping up arguments over this, this was planned. Yes, Al Franken gave those people the gun, but they were smart enough to shoot it at the right time, when an embattled Senate candidate is facing plunging poll numbers and Congress passed a tax bill that will redistribute wealth to the 1%. That should give you pause -- not to Franken's innocence, but to the machinations which may result in his downfall, and to the motives of people who want to see him disgraced.
You can accuse me of enabling sexual predators all you want. I don't care. Al Franken is a good Senator who did a bad thing when he was a comedian, and evil Republicans want to capitalize on that inappropriate behavior to wage class war on this country. He has to stay. For the greater good, he has to stay.
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