Dear hypocrites and enablers: Please stop trying to rehabilitate the predator Al Franken

I had resolved to stay clear of Twitter on Thanksgiving except perhaps to share a few thoughts about food. But last night, I saw a tweet from one of Washington’s longtime liberal think-tankers that was just too much for me to bear:

Perhaps Ornstein and disgraced former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., are old personal friends, and this is just a case of someone wrongheadedly defending a bad person out of personal loyalty. But there has been a broader effort in recent months to rehabilitate the unapologetic serial groper, who was forced out of office for attacking and harassing so many women that his own partisan colleagues couldn’t avoid throwing him under the bus. This broader effort can’t be considered outside of the fact that Franken was a huge draw for Democratic fundraisers, and his disappearance has been a disappointment for many.

For the sanctimonious attitude he took before his downfall toward issues of workplace harassment of women, Franken is also a classic hypocrite. Those trying to rehabilitate his career — and yes, this is a thing, it’s been going on almost since he resigned — are enablers who deserve to be called out.

Most people online at the time of Ornstein’s adoring retweet seemed to understand this. But there were a few tweeters who instead came back with bad excuses for Franken’s behavior, mostly based on false or poorly remembered facts about his case. So, for the benefit of the uninformed, I wanted to post this today to clear up some of the myths about why Franken was forced to resign from the U.S. Senate just under a year ago.

Myth: “Al Franken is a creep maybe, but he wasn’t a sexual predator.” This assertion will always depend in some part on the definitions you choose, but I take it to mean that Franken merely harassed and did not assault his victims. And that isn’t true — at least, not if you believe what his eight accusers say.

Of the eight women who ultimately came forward, three alleged that Franken had grabbed their rear ends (Lindsay Menz and two unnamed women), one alleged that Franken had grabbed her right breast while posing for a photo (Stephanie Kemplin), one alleged that he had grabbed her waist at a party in a way that was not welcome or invited (Tina Dupuy), and three alleged that Franken had either forcibly kissed them or tried to do so (Leeann Tweeden, a former Democratic aide, and an unnamed female Democratic elected official in the Northeast). This is in addition to any further harassment (for example, one woman accused Franken of asking her to accompany him into the bathroom).

Yes, it is possible that all eight of Franken’s accusers lied about almost everything. But Tweeden, his original accuser, was at least able to produce the infamous photo of Franken with his hands cupped around her breasts while she slept. That instantly made her other assault claim, and the claims of the other seven women, more credible.

Franken was apparently fond of grabbing women’s backsides while posing for photographs, and for corroboration, we have the photographs showing he was actually on the scene of several of the incidents mentioned above. The Democratic aide mentioned above said that she was attacked by then-radio-host Franken in 2006 the moment her politician-boss left the room. Franken justified his forcible attempt to kiss her, she claimed, by saying to her, “it’s my right as an entertainer.”

And if that sounds familiar … well, more on that below.

Franken’s predatory behavior — and that’s what it is, the behavior of a sexual predator — ran at least from 2006 through Franken’s career on the Hill. But even by 2006, at age 55, he was taking liberties that don’t seem like first-time offenses.

Myth: “It was just a photo.” The now-famous photograph of Franken groping Leeann Tweeden while she slept is just the tip of the iceberg. Obviously, the photo has nothing to do with the other accusers who highlighted Franken’s alleged predations, even if it instantly bolstered their credibility. But did you know that the photo also doesn’t cover the whole case of Leeann Tweeden? The day before that photo was taken, Tweeden says, Franken tried to badger her into unnecessarily practicing a kiss that was in the script of their USO show. She refused, but when the point in the scene came, she later wrote, Franken “put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.”

The infamous Franken grope photo was just an additional way of humiliating her after what sounds a lot like a sexual assault. That is, unless Tweeden made it all up.

Myth: “Franken owned up to what he’d done.” Nope, not really. In his resignation speech, Franken was accurately described as “defiant, unapologetic.” He insisted that his resignation was not an admission of anything. (I disagree — given Franken’s prominence and position, and the fact that he folded so quickly, you have to take it as an admission. But that doesn’t affect his lack of contrition.)

Franken went on to claim by implication that his accusers were either mistaken or lying — all eight of them — and even said, “I am proud that during my time in the Senate I have used my power to be a champion of women.” Franken did apologize to Tweeden in writing, because he just couldn’t deny the photo. (“There is no excuse, and I understand why you would feel violated by that photo.”) But as for his alleged attack on her during their rehearsal, he claimed that her memory was faulty. (“I remember that rehearsal differently.”)

So, unless you think that all of his accusers are liars or that his memory is considerably better than theirs, then Franken never really owned up to what he did.

Poor excuse: “What about Brett Kavanaugh?” Not only was Franken over 55 years old at the time of the grope photograph (not in high school), and older than that for the other incidents described above, but there is at least some corroboration for nearly all of the accusations against him. For example, there’s the Tweeden photograph itself and also the fact that Franken’s location can actually be traced back to all of the places (through other photos in some cases) where his accusers say he was at the time they say he groped them. Most of Franken’s accusers were also Democratic women, many of them involved in politics and having that in addition to all of the usual disincentives to make anything up.

In contrast, Justice Kavanaugh’s only plausibly credible accuser wasn’t even sure what year her alleged assault had taken place. She only settled on 1982 after coming forward earlier this year. And there were no photographs and no independent evidence presented by anyone that she and Kavanaugh had ever met or attended the same party in 1982 or in any other year. The accuser’s friend, one of her witnesses, could only offer her moral support. She could not corroborate even that the three of them had all been at the same party or that she had ever met Kavanaugh, despite possible attempts to manipulate her testimony and make her say otherwise.

Better excuse: “What about President Trump?” This argument, such as it is, hits closer to the mark. But insofar as it attempts to justify at least some of the Democrats’ sanctimony, it also fails.

The argument is quite easy to make: President Trump at one point even bragged on tape about assaulting women. (As an aside, it’s never a good idea to take Trump at his word, but even if he was speaking falsely, what sort of human being actually brags about doing that, even if he hasn’t done it?) And he too has real-life accusers, just like Franken, but more of them.

In Trump’s “Access Hollywood” conversation, he even appealed to the exact same “right as an entertainer” (not his words) that Franken had allegedly appealed to while attempting to force himself on the female Democratic aide in the case mentioned above.

But at best, Franken and his many defenders/enablers prove with this argument only that they can claim moral equivalence to Donald Trump, and I don’t think that’s where they’d like to be. They (including Franken himself) tried very hard to set themselves up in judgment, outraged by Trump and defending the country and its women from him and all the Republicans. They can’t do any of that while standing by their own sexual predator.

And note further, although it’s at least a debatable point, that the case against Franken in the court of public opinion became much stronger than the one against Trump the moment he chose to resign without a fight.

Myth: “At least Democrats police their own.” Hopefully, these ongoing efforts to rehabilitate Franken (by no means limited to Ornstein) will put this idea to rest. Sure, some partisans try to be honest when it comes to this kind of behavior — or at least some people care enough about optics not to be stupid. Franken’s resignation was forced by fellow Democrats, after all. But many people on both sides are not honest about this sort of behavior or fair with the consequences they expect for those credibly accused.

If anything, just slightly more of #MeToo’s (and pre-#MeToo’s) elected offenders seem to be Democrats, some of whom got away with it for decades (John Conyers and Bob Filner come to mind) despite multiple others in their orbit surely knowing about their behavior all along. (Remember Bill Clinton? He was president, and Democratic partisans keep disparaging his credible accusers right up to the present day.) But the problem is almost equal on a partisan basis, and both parties clearly have an abundance of monsters who are rightly being forced out of politics one way or another.

As Ornstein’s clumsy tweet demonstrates, support for Franken comes even from what you would expect to be the less hackish quarters of the Democrats’ partisan support base. And it is just as unapologetic toward Franken’s accusers as the attitude of even the least reluctant Trump supporter is toward his.

Either the voters or the courts or Congress will have to decide on Trump, who continues to deny everything. But both parties have deep enough benches that there’s no need to bring back any of the creeps who were already flushed out of politics by #MeToo. There was an abundance of Republicans ready to step in and replace Rep. Blake Farenthold and all the others, and of Democrats ready to replace Rep. Ruben Kihuen and all the others.

So, no, Al Franken’s voice is not “important.” He can and should be ignored.