Absolutely. In objecting to what I saw as a mischaracterization of the joke. I should have been more careful in how I offered my own interpretation. I believe this is the joke Franken was making. And I am fine with it. I realize that others disagree. I’m not saying that Ms Tweeden should be fine with the joke. She says she was humiliated and I think that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction. Clearly a lot of people didn’t see the joke as I did.
Your entire point was that Franken hasn’t released any more statements after he twice disputed the story told by Tweeden?
No, we don’t know what information will turn up in an investigation. That’s the point of having an investigation. To learn more. Why would you support an investigation if you don’t believe it could change anything? Witnesses might be found to corroborate or cast doubt upon the accusations. The accusers themselves may provide more information to lend credence to their stories. There might be more physical evidence in the form of more pictures or video. We don’t know.
And “we don’t know” is the judgement to make right now. Because we don’t. Anyone not directly involved saying anything differently is wrong.
That was my initial reaction to the photo. I know of no one, before Sherrerd posted today, who shares my view. That’s why I began my first post by asking if I was the only one who got the joke.
In what way do you find my interpretation “out-there”?
You said you thought it was Franken “pretending to fail to grope her”. I hadn’t heard anyone suggest that, and it seems rather convoluted for a joke. I thought it was more along the lines of “hey, look at me touching this hot chick’s boobs” (or pretending to touch them). That seems like the simpler and more direct interpretation (Occam’s razor may apply), but I recognize that perhaps I just don’t get Franken’s humor.
I’ll concur with HurricaneDitka: that interpretation would never have occurred to me, and I find it a big stretch. I don’t know how – without further context – you could extrapolate “Franken is pretending to be an incompetent pervert” from one picture of him mugging for the camera while he almost gropes a woman.
…how can you object to how other people are characterizing the joke, when the very nature of a joke is based on individuals subjective interpretation? Especially one that is as “out there” as yours?
Nope.
None of this precludes us from making a judgement now based on everything we know. I suspect that everybody in this thread have already made some sort of judgement. Should we all now expect a lecture from you?
We may as well close down Great Debates now. None of us are “directly involved” in anything we discuss here. I’ve made a “judgement.” With new information I can change my judgement. But I most certainly didn’t “rush” to judgement.
Perhaps you can see how I, a boor of little brain, might be confused. One of us must be.
Franken is a Senator, a reliable vote for things I care about. Damn straight I have a stake in it!
I did. Says “to feel or fondle for sexual pleasure”. “Touch”, in other word.
Violating someone’s person is some serious shit, a vulgar and a stupid joke is…a vulgar and stupid joke. If you have a definition that defines “grope” without any reference of “touching”, why don’t you go look it up. I’ll wait right here. Take your time, I’m not that old.
Sadly, your faultless and crystalline logic has not astounded me. You’ll get over it.
To me it seems obvious that Franken is not almost groping her since Ms Tweeden is wearing body armor. She is not laying there vulnerable. Her combat gear is going to prevent the pervert from fondling her breasts.
For the purposes of debate I **have **made the assumption that Franken isn’t touching her. I’ve made that assumption so that we don’t have to litigate the point every time it comes up in the thread, as one tends to do in threads like this. Franken has apologised and Tweeden has accepted, this isn’t going to a court of law, so whether or not Franken touched her or not is largely unimportant.
But whether or not he actually **is **touching her or not is a separate and distinct point. It is clear to me that the left hand isn’t touching her. To the layperson the shadows on the right hand indicate that the right hand isn’t touching her either: but I’ve seen those sorts of shadows before and that isn’t necessarily the case. So I did a quick test and the test confirmed my initial thoughts: it is virtually impossible to say whether or not Franken is touching her, IMHO, as a professional photographer.
You asked me a question about the photo and about my “unscientific” recreation of the photo. I answered it without the “assumption he didn’t touch”, in the context of the question that you asked, because to do otherwise would be pretty fucking stupid. If he is touching her with the right hand then what he is doing with the left doesn’t matter. That seems pretty fucking obvious to me.
No you don’t have a stake in it. You are just like me: a random person on the internet. The photo was not of you. You didn’t put put the CD of the images into your computer to view them, maybe with your husband, and you weren’t surprised, shocked, dismayed and disgusted when this image suddenly popped up on your computer. When that happens to you you see things through a different lens. You are not detached from the moment. You don’t blow the photo up on your 2006 computer-screen and peep at the pixels to try and figure out “is he actually touching me, or is he just nearly but not quite touching me?” You have an instant, visceral reaction. You might not look at the photo again for a number of years.
For the purposes of debate I had made the assumption that Franken didn’t touch her.
That doesn’t mean that IMHO, he didn’t touch her.
So lets change the assumption then. For the purposes of debate I’m going to assume Franken did touch her.
Does that make things easy for you? I could have gone either way from the beginning. But I had no idea that anyone would have such difficulty that conceding a point for the purposes of debate doesn’t mean that I can’t believe the opposite. So lets change the assumption.
He groped her. He touched her while she was sleeping without her permission. Touched.
Has it now progressed from “vulgar and stupid joke” to “some serious shit!” for you now?
Unfortunately no I won’t. I fear that I will be challenging people like you for the rest of my life. I’m not really looking forward to that.
It doesn’t seem out there to me. To me it seems odd that you all don’t seem to understand how body armor works.
The specific characterization I was objecting to was John Mace’s assertion that the joke was indefensible. I feel the same about your claim that the the picture “clearly and unambiguously reveals that Al Franken is a bit of a dick”. I respect that you feel that way but you are wrong about it being unambiguous.
Then I am afraid I have no idea how you reconcile the fact that Franken says he remembers differently with your claim that “nearly every single detail isn’t in dispute”.
So long as the people present their opinion as opinion and not as fact they have nothing to worry about. Yes we can judge based on what we know. Lets just not pretend we know more than we do.
Personally I think Gaudere’s Law should cover situations where people call another post dumb and then make a dumb mistake like “dunbest”. Thanks for the laugh.
Other than that I can’t reply since I don’t understand the nature of your objection.
…I know how body armour works. Do you understand how jokes work?
Yes: it is indeed possible to contort yourself into such an extraordinary position that this photo was somehow “defensible.” But it really isn’t. And the lameness of your defense really proves that point. Regardless of the intent of the joke, Tweeden was not a willing participant in that joke: and that, in my most humble of opinions, is indefensible.
I’ve bolded the bit you can use to reconcile your thoughts.
Well thank fuck for that! Because I don’t see anyone pretending to know more than we do here in this thread.
Factual question: What is the nature of the body armor that she is wearing in the picture?
I think that 2sense may be right that there’s something ridiculous about the idea of groping a person who is wearing body armor.
And if what she is wearing is thick and rigid enough, it might be reasonable to say that he couldn’t have been touching her, only what she was wearing, and that the distinction is significant.
That makes no sense. How could he be touching (or pretending to touch) boobs? She’s wearing body armor.*
It further makes no sense in that it’s not funny. How is ‘hey look at me touching this hot chick’s boobs’ funny?
Y’all disparaging the obvious interpretation that 2sense spelled out, are ‘protesting too much,’ I think.
*Which IS the joke. The body armor. The clueless letch not realizing that body armor will thwart him–hence comedy, with the clueless letch being the butt of the joke. Geez. How is that not self-evident?
Perverts are, by definition, “a person whose sexual behaviour is considered strange and unpleasant by most people.” A pervert would probably enjoy fondling body armour over the breasts. Because doing strange and unpleasant things is what perverts do.
So your belief is that the joke is supposed to be that people viewing the photo will instantly grasp that Al Franken is pretending to be a body armor fetishist who is about to successfully get his rocks off?
This from a person who just questioned whether I understand how jokes work.
…don’t you think its getting a bit ridiculous to even contemplate asking this question?
I mean that in all seriousness. She’s asleep. She’s wearing clothes. Would we be asking the same question if she was in a bikini? How about a sweater? Has this thread honestly degenerated into “what was she wearing?”
If the intent of the joke was to say its ridiculous to grope a person in body armour, then shouldn’t Franken be unambiguously groping her for that joke to work?
I don’t think its all that complicated. She was asleep. Franken was in the moment and chose to stage the photo, the camera-person took the photo. Thats it. I don’t think there was any intent to tell a joke for any wider audience. It was a funny moment for them, so they snapped the picture.