No, they didn’t do everything they could – they could have supported Hillary Clinton (or Evan McMullin or someone else). They could have collectively criticized him during and after the campaign.
It’s laughable that they “did everything they could to stop Trump”. They very obviously did not. Tons of Republicans campaigned alongside him, and the party apparatus worked closely with his campaign. It says a lot about what those individuals involved are willing to support – they’re willing to support behavior like Trump’s.
If the next idea in that sequence is not “and therefore he is to some extent excused,” then what’s the significance of it? I don’t understand what else goes there.
The allegation is that he kissed her against her will, and that he groped her while she was asleep. There’s a picture, which shows what the picture shows.
You believe that he was trying to be funny in doing those things, and let’s just say you’re right, without argument. I don’t see why that’s different from if he was actually just trying to kiss a woman / grope a woman / pretend to grope a woman because he liked it, if the difference isn’t that you think it’s less bad. If you think it’s less bad, then I understand why you’re bringing it up, even though I disagree. But you’re saying it isn’t that. So what is the difference?
Do you think it makes a difference to what her experience was?
In the primaries they did everything to stop him. But the voters spoke about that.
Endorsing Hillary was not an option. Whatever you think of sexual harassment, it’s ridiculous to support someone you disagree with on serious policy issues over personal failings.
The issues that face this country are substantive. The impact of the character of the president is largely symbolic. Symbolic counts for something, but not nearly as much as substance.
…no: your accusation is not all that is needed. We aren’t discussing the “accusation”. We are talking credibility. We can assess the credibility of your accusation quite easily. I’m pretty confident that 15 years ago we were on different continents. We have your admission that your statement is “100% not true.” We can dismiss your accusation as not credible on the basis of those two things alone.
Your insinuation was that because “She admitted there were no witnesses and admitted she did not tell anyone about it (except perhaps some nameless friends but no one in a position of authority)” that her claim was not “credible.” But this is the case with almost every single accusation of historical sexual harassment or abuse. Not telling somebody is not an indicator of credibility. Not telling somebody is not the exception. Its the norm: and you can’t use something that is perfectly normal as evidence that a persons story is not credible. You have to look to other things.
Pictures lie. I know this more than most. I’m a professional photographer.
I am not as convinced as you. And pictures will only tell you what happened in 1/160th of a second: not what happened before, nor what happened after. The mere existence of this picture is bad. It shows an immature act performed by an immature person who should have fucking known better.
These two sentences are just fucking gross. The “not knowing” if she was groped is part of the trauma and should not be dismissed.
Phew! He was only millimeters away from committing sexual assault and a crime. You must be so relieved!
Nah.
You just have to google “why they didn’t come forward” to come up with hundreds of articles about why accusers “wait for so long.” Listen to their stories. It isn’t fair to use “timing” as a reason to doubt an accusation. People don’t come forward for many very valid reasons and it isn’t fair to hold that against them.
It doesn’t work like that. It really fucking doesn’t. Spice Weasel asked you “Do you understand how sexual trauma works, at all?” And it is apparent that the answer to that question is “no you don’t.” I don’t feel that its my place to explain this to you. But I really hope that somebody does.
For fucks sake. So now forcing an actual, ‘put part of my body inside of yours’ encounter doesn’t count as sexual if you think it’s funny? What orifices can I penetrate and with what body parts in the name of ‘comedy’ that won’t then count as sexual by your rules? How much sexual activity can I stage an unconscious body before it becomes sexual?
You know, if I were you, I wouldn’t be quite so chuffed that a relatively small sample of “the other guys” were coming off almost as badly as the average member of my team. But I’m not you.
Campaigning and supporting Trump shouldn’t have been an option, and yet tons of Republicans (and the party apparatus) did that. They could have thrown everything towards Evan McMullin, or someone else.
That doesn’t really provide any justification for supporting Trump, IMO. But that’s a separate discussion.
I’m honestly stunned and disappointed from several posters on the left. I was sure I would come in here and see that there was consistency and calls for Franken to step down. It seems, though, that when these women accuse men on the left of the political spectrum, they are lying whores out for money.
I think I am consistent in this. There is no corroboration for the kissing story and that should not be enough to force Franken from office. And the picture, while technically a battery, should give us all pause before picking up the pitchforks. Are we setting a standard that anything that a person has ever done in the last 10, 20, 40 years, even if once, even if done while drunk, even if he immediately regretted it and it was totally out of character should be a disqualifier from political office? Even if he erroneously thought that she would be “cool” with his “joke”?
What are we going to do when the best people among us decide not to run for office just on the fear of something like this coming out?
I am not saying it is right. I am saying that this isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman such that the man should be banished from society.
So what? They had time to get him on the ballots once it was clear Trump was going to be the nominee. The party chose to embrace Trump and work with him and try to get him elected. Yes, it would have been a remarkable decision to reject Trump, but they still could have made it (and some small number did). But most of them didn’t, and they embraced Trump fully, and still are.
As a factual statement, the Republican party apparatus and “establishment” tried to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee, but once he was the presumptive nominee, embraced him and worked with him and tried to get him elected. If the Democrats boot Franken due to a new “no abusers/harassers/gropers” policy going forward, then that’s a morally superior stance to the Republican stance re: Trump, IMO.
No it’s not. She had a picture, and she was there, and he admitted to most of it (and just said he remembered the rehearsal differently – but didn’t say there was no rehearsal, or contradict her account), and apologized, and she accepted the apology. There’s no evidence she did not present her account honestly, and implying otherwise due to nothing more than her political associations (which are irrelevant to her accusations) is, frankly, disgusting.
But to be clear, Tweeden isn’t claiming that she was groped (she was asleep at the time after all). She’s saying that the picture shows she was groped. But it doesn’t to my eyes. It looks to me like a staged photo joke by a photographer and a comedian acting like assholes.
She also said that she wanted a damn apology. Which she deserved in my view and which she received twice in the same day. She’s happy with the apology (both) and isn’t calling for pitchforks. Just a little accountability.
I could put this in a different post, but I won’t waste the electrons. No relation to BB’s comments.
Kevin Drum calls for proportionality: Should Al Franken Resign? – Mother Jones [INDENT][INDENT][INDENT] Not all offenses are the same. Shoplifting is not as bad as grand theft. Assault is not as bad as murder. Saying this doesn’t imply approval of either shoplifting or assault; it’s merely a statement of uncontroversial fact. Likewise, not all sexual abuse is equal. Harvey Weinstein’s rap sheet includes dozens of accusations of groping, forced massages, and possibly rape. Louis C.K. masturbated in front of actresses multiple times. Roy Moore routinely chased after high school girls when he was in his 30s and appears to have aggressively assaulted at least two of them.
By contrast, Franken thought he was joking around but went farther than he should have. Once.¹ It’s no whitewash to say that this is a considerably lesser offense. But if the only response we have to any kind of sexual abuse is to insist on resignation from office and expulsion from public life—mostly to protect our own reputations—we are not acting with any sense of proportionality. We need to start. Listen to Leeann Tweeden, folks.
¹There’s allegedly a second accusation coming out later today, something that Roger Stone tweeted about last night. It is, for now, suspicious in the extreme and appears likely to be a conservative ratfuck. We’ll see. [/INDENT][/INDENT][/INDENT]
Correct me if I’m wrong but the allegation is that, while rehearsing a skit in which they were supposed to be kissing, he got aggressive with the kiss and stuck his tongue down her throat. I’m willing to say that maybe they both remember things a bit differently from that day as far as how aggressive the kiss was. But it was part of the skit they were rehearsing. She says she was reluctant to do the rehearsal, but she did agree to do it. She could have said: “OK, I’ll rehearse the skit, but no kissing! Got that?” If he kissed her after that, then yeah, that’s a kiss against her will.
The groping thing looked like a pretend grope. But she was sleeping and that was an asshole thing for one adult to do to another, especially if pics were taken. But I’m leaning towards asshole rather than sexual groper.
Even if it’s a “hit job” to the maximum extent possible, then what? It’s Photoshopped, and Franken’s way of responding to things that are completely made up out of whole cloth is to say well, I don’t quite remember it that way, but it’s still important that these stories be told?
He behaved in a gross and unacceptable way, at the very least. He seems to appreciate that he should know better. Attacking the messenger at this point is exactly the kind of political hairsplitting and rationalizing that LIKE 24 HOURS AGO everyone on the left seemed to know was toxic and reprehensible. If you had asked your average progressive yesterday, say, what would you do if out of the blue some very respected, very well liked figure on the left was accused of sexual harassment or assault, they would all have said well shit, I can tell you what I wouldn’t do! I wouldn’t act like these Republicans, making excuses and attacking the victim, and grasping at straws to try to avoid coming down against my man! This one is a free fucking square in the game of “what’s right.”
She said that he kissed her without her consent, so if what she said is important to you, there it is. But yes, the allegation is that he wrote a kiss in, then said they needed to rehearse it, and she didn’t think they needed to rehearse it, but tried to laugh it off, and then he grabbed her and shoved his tongue in her mouth. She could have done lots of things. What I’ve just described is what he actually did, which seems the important part of the story. I don’t know what happened, you don’t know what happened, lots of things could have happened. But, as was just the case with all the Roy Moore shit, and all the other shit, there’s a big difference between saying well, hard to say exactly where to come down on some of this, let’s withhold absolute judgment, and trying to pick apart the story and attack her motivations (generally, not you in particular).
She was uncomfortable, didn’t want to do it, but she said OK. The details of her story, as told by her, don’t match the analysis of “without my consent”.