Put the Pitchforks DOWN, Liberals
Update: as of Nov. 20th, CNN is reporting a second accusation against Franken that looks way more credible than Tweeden’s story. However, I want to clarify that I still stand by what I said in this article. I am still an advocate for taking a measured approach to these accusations and judging them ON THEIR MERITS. The Tweeden story still does not stand up to scrutiny, even though this most recent accusation DOES.
This Al Franken mess has ignited a lot of conflict on social media. And surprisingly, it’s been mostly liberals fighting other liberals. In case you’ve been living under a rock the last week, by “Al Franken mess”, I mean the way the ferocity of the #MeToo movement has now bled onto the left.
Sadly, I’ve lost 3 friends — 2 of them were just Facebook acquaintances, but one is a woman I was close to in real life — because of my defense of Franken. They are all outspoken liberals with whom I otherwise have many things in common.
But on this issue, in my opinion, their critical thinking skills (which seem to be in short supply these days on both the right AND left) have taken a holiday. I’ve been seeing too much knee-jerk support of the woman who accused him and a rush to proclaim him guilty right out of the gate. I believe for many people, this comes from the good intentions of wanting to “believe all women.” But I think “believe all women” is a faulty position, especially when the right isn’t above lying and playing dirty tricks. Many of them are supporting and defending to the death a man who likes to grope teenagers in malls, who has been accused of rape or sexual assault by no less than 7 women. Can we really put lying about an assault charge past these ethically challenged Republicans?
The right is really, really good at manipulating our empathy and caring — characteristics that seem absent of late on their side — to get us to fight amongst ourselves.
For some of my male friends, however, I suspect the knee-jerk condemnation of Franken arises from a “White Knight” motivation — the paternalistic desire to protect women or at least be seen as a feminist ally in the eyes of their left-leaning female friends. Not many people are asking, why should we “believe ALL women”? Why should we believe 100 percent of victim accusations of ANY gender, for ANY crime, without supporting evidence? As a woman who’s been groped and assaulted myself, I say it does a disservice to those of us who’ve been legitimately harassed to “believe ALL women.” False rape accusations in the general public are rare for many reasons — it’s true. But this isn’t the real world. This is the political world where a lot of people are willing to dive pretty low, just to distract or obfuscate.
As a friend of mine pointed out, should everyone believe pathological liars with ulterior political motivations? What if the accuser was Kellyanne Conway? Or Sarah Palin? Some people don’t seem to get that you can STILL be a supporter and ally of the #MeToo movement AND suggest something is off with the accusations against Al.
Let me be clear — my defense of Franken has nothing to do with the fact that he’s a Democrat, and I’m a Democrat. It isn’t blind party loyalty spurring me on. I’ve taken the time to really examine the evidence before forming an opinion (something that also seems to be in short supply lately), and this whole thing smells rotten. It looks like a set-up, and I’ll explain why.
First off, the circumstances surrounding these allegations and the behavior of many of those involved is highly suspicious:
- The first thing that looked shady to me was scumball Roger Stone tweeting from his proxy account BEFORE the allegations were made that it would soon be “Al Franken’s time in the barrel”. Keep in mind, Stone is being investigated for “predicting” that Wikileaks would release Clinton and Podesta’s stolen e-mails. I’m pretty sure Mueller has a sealed indictment with Stone’s name on it.
Guess who else “predicted” the Al Franken controversy? ALEX JONES. Yes…Alex “pizzagate” “NASA runs a sex ring on Mars” tin foil hat-wearing Jones — who, by the way, is also being investigated by the FBI for collusion with Russia. The site was gloating the other day about their supposed prescient powers. These guys aren’t the brightest bulbs in the universe.
2. Franken has become a huge target for the right by being one of the most vigorous investigators during the Senate hearings on Trump’s collusion with Russia. His attacks on Jeff “I can’t recall” Sessions have been relentless. Franken has become a hero on the left for his personable approach to Sessions’ bogus testimony, which includes laughing outright at the Attorney General’s preposterous defense of his own perjury.
Trump and his entourage would like nothing more than to take Franken down, to take some of the heat off of them.
3. Right after Leann Tweeden made the accusations against Franken, several Twitter accounts began accusing Richard Blumenthal of assault. These accounts were later proven to be fake. Pro-Trump sites then ran wild with the fake allegations.
This is all really starting to smell like a coordinated right-wing hit job, with a probable list of Democratic politicians they’re attacking in sequence.
When you look at the Blumenthal attack, it seems like no coincidence that Donald Trump’s mentor was none other than Roy Cohn, who played a big role in the McCarthy witch hunts. Trump clearly learned a lot of dirty tricks from Cohn. Of course, Trump wants to distract from any number of objectionable news items of late — the GOP’s “tax reform” that will screw the poor and middle class; rumors of more indictments coming down the pike in the Russia investigation; Roy Moore’s continued belligerence in the face of calls for him to step aside, etc.
Ultimately, the left a) shouldn’t underestimate the willingness of the right to lie and make up shit, because they’ve been doing it for years now, and b) can’t AFFORD to engage in the same mindless rush to judgment that the right does. It’s that level of uncritical thinking and outright laziness that allowed the Russians to manipulate our election with fake news. In the days of manipulated photos, videos, fake twitter bots..we need to analyze information MORE CRITICALLY THAN EVER.
4. No less than EIGHT women who worked for Franken have spoken out in his defense, saying they’ve never seen him treat women with anything other than respect. In a court of law, character witnesses have an impact on judging the guilt or innocence of the accused parties. Who’s spoken out in Roy Moore’s defense, besides his wife (who faked a letter allegedly signed by 50 pastors in support of him) and his attorney?
5. Franken’s voting record suggests he attacks sexist policies and supports women’s rights. There is nothing in his congressional record to suggest he harbors any dysfunctional views on women whatsoever. Instead, he’s been a champion for reproductive rights, harsh penalties against domestic abusers, and many other pro-women policies. Compare his record to Donald Trump, who’s been advocating the repeal of womens’ rights, left and right. Men in power who assault women and treat them like objects don’t just do so behind closed doors — their policies reflect their sexist attitudes and behaviors. Unlike Trump and Moore, Franken shows absolutely NO longterm pattern of disrespecting women.
6. Liberal radio pundit and former colleague of Franken’s at Air America Randi Rhodes defended him, despite prior “ bad blood” between them, reporting that the Washington Post and other outlets contacted her and, presumably every other woman that Franken has ever worked with (including his senatorial staff, Air America and SNL) and found not one single woman who ever felt that he had harassed or behaved inappropriately with any of them. Randi says, “Sure, Al is a full frontal lip kisser. Which is weird and uncomfortable.” But, she says that it is his quirk, and while it is awkward, there is nothing sexual or predatory about it.
Then, there are questions about the accusations themselves:
- Regarding the photo where Ms. Tweeden claims to be sleeping — people have blown the pic up in Photoshop, and her eyes appear to be open. Secondly, I have many military friends who say that unless you’re a really exhausted warrior who’s just escaped the heat of battle, it would be really fucking hard to sleep on a plane in a helmet.
- Look at the USO video on youtube. There was a LOT of joking about sexual harassment by a musician whom Leann Tweeden introduced and seemed to like. That same musician gropes a female service member on her behind. Tweeden seems to have no problem with any of this. People who are familiar with the tone of USO shows are now speaking out and pointing out that they tend to be a free-wheeling, “bawdy” environment, and one could easily see Franken and others being caught up in that enough to make a joke about groping Ms. Tweeden’s flak jacket.
A Facebook friend of mine who claims to know Ms. Tweeden posted this about her:
“This morning, Leann Tweeden went on The View and read Al’s letter of apology. She accepted Al’s mea culpa and said that she doesn’t want Al to resign. So, kudos to her for responding with class and dignity.
Since I worked with Leann at Playboy magazine 20+ years ago, she has become a very successful, conservative radio host and regular conservative voice with ties to Sean Hannity and Roger Stone. So, I have my doubts about the sincerity of this new “scandal.”
People have been saying, “Franken ADMITTED he assaulted her in the sketch and apologized..case closed. He’s guilty.” Well, hold up now. Imagine you are Franken, and you probably regret doing something stupid on a plane, on a lark; however, you also recognize a coordinated hit job against you. You probably also realize that if you tried, like Hillary Clinton did in the 1990s, to point out a “vast right wing conspiracy” against you, you’ll probably be laughed off the planet, like Hillary was.
He’s in a bit of a no-win position here.
In his apology statement, he makes it clear that HIS version of the skit rehearsal differ from hers. In other words, he’s subtly calling her out on a lie; meanwhile, acknowledging that he MAY HAVE behaved inappopriately and welcoming an ethics investigation into the matter. Does that sound like the actions of a serial molester? Contrast that to the actions of Roy Moore. He’s vilified his accusers, denied every accusation, and threatened to sue the paper that broke the story (The Washington Post).
Now..should more women come out accusing Al Franken, and their accusations are credible, I will re-think my defense of him. BUT that doesn’t discount that this whole thing appears to have started as a right-wing hit job.
Now that we’ve all moved past the “OH NO, NOT AL FRANKEN??!!” shock moment, there’s been a gradual drip of critical voices on the left, besides me, pointing out that something seems rotten in the state of Denmark.
“Imagine it’s September or October 2020, and out of nowhere multiple women accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of sexual abuse, but instead of surfacing in a meticulously sourced story in a news outlet with a healthy tradition of careful reporting, it runs in a blind item on Breitbart.com. Or imagine such a story about a current Democratic candidate or leader landed in such an outlet tomorrow.
Breitbart is notorious for amplifying hyperbolic and fabricated stories meant to undermine Democrats, pluralism, the entire liberal project, but they tend to specialize in fostering conspiratorial paranoia and racial panic (think Benghazi, and Shirley Sherrod). Their situational obsession with sexual misconduct isn’t typically built on fabrication, but deployed in the midst of real scandals to portray liberals as hypocrites and to damage Democrats (think Anthony Weiner, and Weinstein) or to portray minorities and immigrants as degenerates.”
Those of us who follow the political machinations on the right closely and been appalled at how low they will stoop could have predicted the Franken controversy.
If and when evidence shows that Ms. Tweeden is lying..the right will use it to say “See? Women lie. You can’t believe Moore’s accusers, either. “ Never mind that this is stereotyping. Sexist. Reductionist thinking. The right engages in this kind of thinking ALL THE TIME. They use it when it comes to race (i.e, the racist shit about “black ppl commit more crimes than white ppl” I see ALL THE TIME, spoken by moronic Trump supporters). They use it to condemn Muslims (as in, we should BAN all Muslims because of the actions of a few zealots.) And don’t forget Trump’s insinuations that Mexicans are “bad hombres” — drug dealers and rapists.
Blindly accepting Ms. Tweeden’s allegations without judging them on their merits does a huge disservice to the #MeToo movement. I feel that this fits right into the right’s agenda. I believe they would like nothing more than to discredit the #MeToo movement by propagating false accusations in order to promote the false conclusion that “if you can’t believe ONE woman..then you certainly can’t believe ALL women.”
If you want to take up pitchforks, leftists, why not go after THESE bigots — Trump, Moore, Stone, Jones, Bannon — who are REALLY making womens’ lives hell? But especially the lying, snaky conspirators who think it’s cool to engage in character assassination to discredit liberal politicians with solid pro-woman credentials who criticize Trump, damaging the #MeToo movement in the process?
Copyright 2017 Sandra Wade
UPDATE: It’s now being pointed out that Ms. Tweeden appeared to be quite affectionate with Senator Franken at a USO gala held in his honor in 2009. If she was so angry about that kiss for 10 years, I doubt she’d be beaming in this photo:
