Wayne Gallant, sheriff of Oxford County, Maine, resigned today after sexual misconduct allegations lead his county commisioners to ask the governor for his removal.
We’ve had twenty five years of a sexual abuser and his main enabler at the top of the Democratic Party. A seperate abuser reportedly resigns and suddenly the Dems can’t stop patting themselves on the back over their integrity. It’s all a bit sickening. It all smack of political maneuvering. All those settled sexual harassment suits in Congress were quite in keeping with Democratic Party morals until only the past week or two.
I’m highly skeptical that Franken leaving will result in a net gain for Democrats. Much more likely:
Democrats calling for Franken to resign may believe they are forging a new image for themselves as the party of Virtue/Purity/Zero Tolerance, etc.
But what they are really doing is forging a new image for themselves as the party of gullibles who will eagerly self-immolate under the theory “accusation IS guilt.” Additionally they are standing firm for the principle that due process has no value.
It’s a terrible mistake.
If I believed Franken guilty of what he’s accused of, I’d be calling for him to resign, too. But we just don’t have credible evidence that he’s guilty. Take the much-ballyhooed ‘seventh accuser’—she states that while taking a photo with Franken that she requested at a 2009 Inauguration party,
…and labels this, without hesitation, as “copping a feel.” Tina Dupuy: I Believe Franken’s Accusers Because He Groped Me, Too - The Atlantic
Really? That’s copping a feel? That’s sexual harassment? I remain skeptical.
The other accusations: only three, I believe, willing to put their names to their allegations, and three who ‘wish to remain anonymous’. The evidence that Franken deliberately grabbed butts or boobs or deliberately used tongue during an agreed-to stage kiss, remains remarkably sketchy.
This is a foolish standard for Democrats to embrace. The smart move would be to embrace the principle of due process, and let the accusers make their statements under oath (in non-public settings if they really feel anonymity is essential, though one can’t help wondering, in this particular context, why they do).
Instead, congressional Democrats are embracing ‘merely accuse any of us you find to be an obstacle, and we will remove ourselves.’ That’s not the ethical high ground–that’s the height of folly.
Makes me wonder if, if the GOP got a multitude of accusers to strategically accuse all 47 Democrats in the Senate and however-many in the House…at which point the Democratic Party would say, “OK, no more guilty-until-proven-innocent.”
Well done in contributing, in a small but still real way, to the atmosphere that makes victims of sexual assault and harassment less likely to come forward.
Reputable news organizations don’t put forward any random accuser’s story. They investigate – they ask questions, look for evidence that the accuser was actually where they say they were with the accused, look for corroboration from people they may have told at the time, etc. Most or all of these accusations against Franken have been corroborated by others that the accusers told at the time, in addition to being verified that they were indeed present. Contrary to what seems to be a popular belief, credible accusations (especially multiple credible accusations with similar MOs) are very difficult to fabricate.
It’s crazy that anyone thinks that this is how this works. Journalists don’t repeat any random accusation they hear. They investigate and actually do their jobs, at least if they want to have a journalistic career. These accusations were all investigated and put forward by credible and respected news sources. Credible allegations – especially multiple credible allegations – are very difficult to fabricate.
They’d probably catch on somewhere around the 30th or so.
Obviously I disagree with your accusation. The ‘believe all accusations’ meme is anti-feminist, in my view, as it ignores the importance of due process to our ethical and moral lives.
In my several-times-stated opinion, the standard should be: all accusers will be listened to, and their accusations fully investigated. To twist and distort that standard by claiming that it means that ‘victims will be less likely to come forward’ reflects either a lack of thought or a lack of honesty (or perhaps self-honesty).
“Most”? If we posit seven accusations, then surely you must be claiming here that at least four of the accusers meet the standard that their allegations were “corroborated by others that the accusers told at the time.” I’m not seeing that standard met in the accounts I’m reading. Can you support your claim with citations?
The accusations, in the case of Franken, all depend on an assumption that we know what Franken was thinking. Corroboration of assumptions-of-intent (in reference to Franken: to sexually harass, to demean, to belittle, to gain a sexual thrill, etc.) are missing in these cases.
In this very thread, several posters have mentioned incidents in which their hands came in contact with a ‘sensitive area’ on another person’s body.
For example, one man couldn’t reclaim his infant daughter from a female acquaintance holding the baby close to her chest, without his hand touching that female acquaintance’s breast. He deliberately touched her breast. Because there was no other way to safely take possession of his baby. So, if that poster holds political office, I assume you would be calling for him to resign? Because he deliberately touched that woman’s breast.
Obviously the critical factor in the touch of one person’s hand on another person’s body is intent. Did the aforementioned poster intend to harass the female acquaintance holding his daughter? Did he intend to demean or diminish her as a person? Was he trying to get a sexual thrill?
No. He was trying to get his baby from her, without dropping the baby on the floor.
With Franken, it’s safe to say that in thousands of photos-with-fans, he touched a waist. Maybe while moving around, hand came in contact with other body parts. But does the mere fact of touch mean intent to harass? Does a hand on a waist signal an intent to demean, or to obtain sexual thrills?
My answer to these questions is that in Franken’s case, so far, we don’t have good evidence that the intent to harass or demean or get sexual jollies was present.
While firmly in the “women ought to be believed” camp, I nonetheless find it highly improbable that amongst all the accusers of Franken, Conyers, Weinstein, Moore, and trump (sounds like the worlds scariest law firm) there doesn’t exist at least one liar. Hell, there was a lying Moore accuser, even if she was a right-wing plant.
That’s not what you said. You implied anyone who believed them was gullible (and you used the word “gullible”). You also implied (by my reading) that these were merely accusations alone, with no corroborating evidence at all, as if these were random women with no evidence they were ever near Franken.
This was from my memory of the reports. But I’m not interested in this level of pedantry. Multiple accusations have been corroborated by contemporaries – I don’t remember exactly how many. One credible allegation is too many (and enough for someone to resign, IMO).
I find this to be an incredibly weak defense (and a shift from “how do we know they’re being honest?” to “how do we know it wasn’t just an accidental touch?”). I don’t find it credible at all. If I’ve ever touched someone’s intimate parts by accident (and I’m not sure if I have), my shock and embarrassment would have been very clear immediately. I’ve never violated someone’s consent by using their unconscious body without permission as a prop for a lewdly-positioned photograph – someone capable of that is capable of violating consent in the ways described by these women. And the MO is very similar in most of these examples – he finds opportunities to put his hands in intimate places, without permission, when he’s close to women he doesn’t know in public events and encounters. I believe that women, in general, know when a touch in an intimate area is accidental or malicious. Multiple women telling similar stories almost certainly do. I think a massive right wing conspiracy is less unlikely than that these were accidental touches, and that’s a ridiculous theory in itself.
In short, sickening, disgusting bullshit. I’m very saddened that there are still many Democrats finding ways to excuse sexual assault and harassment.
Are you also shocked to find gambling in this establishment.
Yes, very shocked. Now, may I have my winnings, please?
But I do remember that day well. Franken wore a smile. The dame wore a flack jacket.
The joke best told is sometimes the joke untold.
What the Democrats do or don’t do has nothing to do with what I said concerning a Republican, though.
All it takes is:
- A claim that a touch while a photo was taken was a deliberate attempt to demean, harass, or attain sexual gratification, and
- A claim by a second person that the first person mentioned the photo incident at some time in the past.
That’s all it takes. What it does is establish that an investigation should take place, and should include testimony under oath.
What it does not do is establish that a touch, if it occurred, was a deliberate attempt to demean, harass, or gain sexual gratification.
What difference would that make? You are guilty of touching their intimate parts. Case closed.
Or are you not judging yourself by the same standard you apply to Franken? For Franken, the touch equals intent to harass, demean, or obtain sexual gratification. But for you, not?
I’ve been reading your posts with enjoyment for several years now, and I nearly always agree with you.
But that remark was way out of line. No one here has excused sexual assault or harassment.
You don’t realize that you’re doing it, but you still are, IMO. There’s a non zero possibility that at least one of the accusers is lying or mistaken. But there’s no evidence anyone is lying or mistaken. No reason to believe that they are lying or mistaken. No reason to discount their version of the events.
The chances of claims like these meeting fabricated are constantly and wildly overestimated. It just doesn’t happen except very occasionally. And it almost always comes out if so.
Until there’s actually any reason to believe that any of these accusations are lies or mistaken intentions, I think it’s very wrong to imply that there’s anything more than a tiny chance of this.
Some guys like to grope. It’s pretty apparent that Franken is one of those guys. I don’t know why this is so difficult for so many to believe. There’s a photograph of him either groping or fake groping, for God’s sake!
The reason Franken is retiring (or being asked to retire) is that going through the ethics investigation is only going to keep all this stuff in the headlines with little likelihood of a positive outcome for him. The only chance of not seeing that picture of him on the nightly news for months on end, and not the midterm elections, is for him to give it up. Too much damage is done, too much incriminating evidence is out there.
The Republican establishment is really wishing Moore would do the same thing, because they know he’s going to be a huge millstone around the party’s neck in the upcoming elections. We’re going to see a lot of ads with his accusers in them, and you can be sure there will be pics of them in their teenage years, too.
If Franken wants to recover his career as an Independent, more power to him. But the Democrats are right to want him out of the limelight. He’s a liability to the party. He can be replaced.
Trying to forcibly kiss an assistant, and saying, “It’s my right as an entertainer”? Can anyone imagine Franken actually saying this? My bullshit meter just yelled.
I figure he will either do an Obi Wan Kenobi and become more even more powerful once he is struck down by returning to his days as a comedian/satirist with no senate decorum to worry about or he will say fuck it and enjoy a quiet retirement sipping umbrella drinks somewhere.
No one is interested in anything but the accusation. Women are to be believed. Period. Full stop.
Plenty of examples of that notion in this thread and elsewhere on this board and not to mention the rest of the country.