The new claim among Democrats that fallen former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., was wrongfully shafted by his own party is telling. It’s the result of Democrats’ attempted weaponization of the #MeToo movement, and the manner in which it heavily backfired on them.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the latest to try to rehabilitate the former Senate sex predator. On Monday, during a town hall Democratic presidential primary forum on MSNBC, he was asked if Franken should have been “pushed” to resign by his Democratic colleagues in the Senate after a woman in 2017 accused him of sexual assault. Buttigieg babbled about it being Franken’s own decision to resign. But then he said Democrats “held him to a higher standard than the GOP does to their people.“
This is bold revisionist history. Democrats are most certainly not held to a “higher standard.” They’re just whining now that they’re being held to their own standard, articulated on Nov. 22, 2015 by Hillary Clinton as: “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.”
It’s true, not everyone believes that an accusation is in itself a conviction. President Trump was elected after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court despite uncorroborated testimony by Christine Blasey Ford.
But it’s laughable for Buttigieg to suggest that Franken’s case was anything like Trump’s or Kavanaugh’s.
In Franken’s case, there was an abundance of corroborating evidence and eight women who came forward, most in spite of their political affiliation. The most prominent woman who accused Franken, KABC radio host Leeann Tweeden, had written in graphic terms that during an overseas USO tour of the Middle East in 2006, he forced his tongue into her mouth while they practiced a skit. She also said that on the flight back to the U.S., he groped her while she was sleeping. To support the latter accusation, Tweeden had a photograph of Franken with both of his hands cupped around her breasts over her Kevlar vest while she was sleeping.
Following Tweeden’s account, several other women came forward with similar stories about Franken touching them inappropriately, both on their behinds and their breasts. There were photographs in nearly all of these cases showing (unlike in the case of Kavanaugh) that Franken had at least been present with his accusers at the scene of the alleged crime.
Buttigieg, at the town hall on Monday, eventually offered that he “would not have applied that pressure at that time” to Franken “before we knew more.” But it’s not as though the jury was still out on what Franken did. There were accusations. There was a photo. And Franken apologized, admitting that he felt “ashamed” and “disgusted” by his own actions.
What more would Buttigieg have needed? For Ruth Bader Ginsburg to accuse Franken of peeking up her robe?
There was no “higher standard” for Franken. Nobody needed to know “more” before asking him to resign. And Democrats such as Buttigieg are giving away the fact that they’re not sorry for how Democratic men treat women — they’re only sorry that Franken isn’t around to raise money for them anymore. And they’re upset, of course, that their weaponization of the #MeToo movement came with unintended consequences.
