For mid-summer we’re looking at a busy week, scandal and resistance-wise. Robert Mueller testifies tomorrow. (I couldn’t have lower expectations. Bill Barr has ordered him not to say a word beyond his report, so even if by now Mueller knows he’s being played, he’ll do what his superiors tell him to do.)
Then next week the Democrats go at it again, this time Detroit. (WWP Democratic Power Rankings to publish soon.)
And right now we’ve got the reevaluation of Al Franken and them that done him in. With Jane Mayer’s storytelling in The New Yorker, we get a reiteration (with considerably more depth) on the hit job that took out Franken, (and to which he acceded). It was, as we already knew, the rawest of political calculations.
Franken the Accused had to go — and chop, chop — because Democrats had to present a face of unimpeachable #MeToo purity at that precise moment, since Alabama was in the process of deciding whether to send an accused child molester to the Senate. Whether the business with his USO pal Leeann Tweeden was true or yet another episode of classic Roger Stone ratfcking (to borrow from Charlie Pierce) did not matter a whit. Nor did whether there was really anything to the other accusations of butt-grabbing and groping served up by various women, including the one who said Franken pawed her at the State Fair while her family was taking their picture together. (Whaaaaa … ?)
Because everyone who follows The Game must offer a hot take in moments like this, otherwise liberal (to hyper-liberal) pundits having been feverishly feeding the furnace of opinion.
Over at the well-empowered gals website Jezebel, Esther Wang writes, “If Me Too has shed a light on the spectrum of abuse that women have been systematically subjected to, then it has also served to flatten a wide variety of experiences under one imperfect and unwieldy umbrella, giving those who would already tend to dismiss women’s claims or are uneasy at the idea of a ‘good’ man committing gross acts an easy way to defend their positions. ‘This isn’t Kavanaugh. It isn’t Roy Moore’, the comedian Sarah Silverman pointed out in the piece.”
Likewise, at Vox Matt Yglesias, lays out the basics of the political pageant, the need to appear fully supportive of every claim of sexual harrassment in the Roy Moore moment and the not-inconsequential certainty that Minnesota would appoint another liberal Democrat as Franken’s replacement.
But Yglesias then concludes by saying, “Yet the facts of the case are simple — his conduct was wrong, and it came to light under a series of circumstances when the best option for the causes Franken believes in was to step down, and so he stepped down. It’s true that he could have fought on, and perhaps from a purely self-interested perspective, he should have. But politicians aren’t supposed to be purely self-interested. At a critical moment, Franken actually did something selfless and correct. He deserves to be congratulated for it, but instead, he’s chosen to trash the potentially redemptive thread in the story and make things worse. “
But here’s “the thing” for me, and maybe for you. How do we know, and how can we judge, if what Franken did — whatever it was — was actually “wrong”? Everyone can interpret and surmise. But what really happened? What is true? Who among these folks has made an attempt to find out?
Unlike Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh and Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves and Charlie Rose and on and on, there has never been as far as I can tell any kind of serious investigation, official or journalistic, of the accusations made against him.
Even worse, and a very good reason for Franken to consent to a long interview with one the country’s most credible investigative joyrnalists, is that very few of his colleagues cared … at that moment. The corpse of his career on a public funeral pyre was the image the party decided it needed at that moment, (and could accept with Tina Smith in the wings). Nothing less was going to send a grander message to anyone undecided about whether to vote for Roy Moore or Doug Jones.
Out on the broader canvas the issue remains whether the Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer but catalyzed by an extraordinarily ambitious Kirsten Gillibrand, were played by fairly recognizable right-wing characters and tactics.
Again, we don’t know if they were. But the likelihood that Democrats sacrificed Franken — a truly aggravating thorn to Republicans — in hasty reaction to a political con is at least as plausible as Franken grabbing constituent butts in public and in front of their families.
None of this will change the fundamental of the story. Franken’s out and he won’t be back in that job.
But Jane Mayer’s story — by far the most fully told story of the episode — has to serve as an admonishment the next time the skittery herd feels pressure from such a remarkably loose collection of accusations.
Brian, I’m so glad I found your site. And YES — you are right on with regard to the ASSASSINATION of Al Franken.
and to follow up… as someone once married to a sexual-violence activist, I know the damage that non-events like Franken mugging for a camera affects the perceptions of real events like actual sexual violence.
Larry, good to hear from you. Besides a wife and two daughters-in-law, I’ve got three sisters. So, like most men, I’ve heard countless stories of stupid, gross, boorish, rude and puerile behavior by men toward women. It’s telling though how many women, though rightly irritated-to-disgusted, manage to shrug it off, and in many instances eventually laugh it off — usually over lunch with their pals. No one excuses male stupidity, but it’s been a remarkably constant facet of the male personality for a very long time. I’d like to see it evolve away, and I know most women would like to see some serious improvement, but until then most of the women I know are pretty resilient in the face and presence of male clods.
I’m an outlier on this, and I know the wounds are still raw. But I’m with Yglesias.
It could be true that all eight accusers were lying about the groping. But the sheer number of accusers did make me more likely to believe at least a few of them are being truthful. That made me feel very differently about him than I did before I heard the accusations. It’s obviously true that groping is different than the more violent actions that Weinstein and Crosby were accused of. But the guy was in his 60s and it was unwelcomed and disturbing to the women, so it was not nothing.
Yes, due to lack of witnesses or similar proof, if I was on a jury, I probably couldn’t vote to convict Franken. But here’s the thing: I’m not on a jury. This isn’t a trial. Therefore, “beyond a reasonable doubt” isn’t the standard I applied. I’m a voter. This is a democracy where everyone gets to have opinions about who is most electable and most credible to promote their point of view. Eight groping accusations later, I lost confidence in Franken’s ability to be electable and be an effective advocate for my point-of-view. I haven’t changed my mind about that.
I hear you, Joe. But as a voter I would have much (much) preferred to let Franken’s career rest on the next round of voting rather than as a sacrificial lamb for moment’s high ground. I suppose it’s possible he “groped” some of the women, although what is meant by “groping” seems to shift from lens to lens. But if the Tweeden business is the best-investigated example of the bunch, I can not help but believe the Democrats were royally played by nefarious actors. And that’s why — with all the water over the dam — I’m most interested in what lessons the party and it’s most virulent activists have learned from the episode? The defaut position that liberals will banish anyone among them — without even a semblance of due process — to sustain a stark moral contrast with the Republicans’ clown car of grifters and perverts — means a long, steady run of intramural executions. Don’t know we’ve got that much talent to burn.
Brian – great introspective analysis of the Franken debacle. Thank you. I hope you are the journalist who Franken decides to sit down with for the “long interview.” By the way, your writing reminds of my most favorite ever political author/commentator (now long gone), Molly Ivins. Carry on. – Julie (aka Big Red)
Well thank you, mam. I truly do take that as a compliment. Molly was steady gold. What made her so irresistible is that she both had something to say and she said it. She didn’t buy into the self-moderating for mainstream propriety’s sake style of writing. I miss her.
I think several accusers stayed anonymous. It’s not hard to imagine this as a hit job…
I grew up in the D.C. area in the sixties and seventies. Gropers were everywhere. My friends and I learned to tell guys to keep their hands to themselves and buzz off. I did not know anyone who was traumatized, more just annoyed. And yes, we had bosses that groped us. I hit one of them.
I agree with the Me Too people that it needs to stop. But they overreached when they booted out our senator. For that I am no longer on their team.
I continue to believe that the #MeToo movement will be the most consequential of this era. It’s a fundamental realignment in the human order. But like every revolution there are excesses and difficult learning experiences. Daring to say that all cloddish-to-creepy behavior by men toward women is not equal is like strolling through a minefield, even though common sense tells you there’s an enormous difference between a man demanding sex in order for a woman to advance (or stay) in her job and a guy whose “muffin top” squeezes are a bit too slithery for comfort.