Comments

Okay, now I’ll weigh in on Al Franken, abuser du jour — 83 Comments

1. Witch! Witch!! Witch!!!

2. Griffin:

   Me, Franken, or Tweeden? 🙂 Or all three, as in Shakespeare?

3. I don’t see actual contact either, so you are right that it’s not assault or even groping but it is sexual harrassment. If I had done the same think to a female coworker in 2006, I would have had a very long chat with my HR rep. If I had done it yesterday I would be carrying a pink slip home.

4. Neo,

   More the people on the sidelines. I’m not an expert on this but weren’t there cases of people at the height of the ‘witch trials’ accusing lots of people of being ‘witches’?

   Of course I have zero sympathy for this guy as he would have none for anyone that didn’t fit his ideology (see his comments to Judge Willett yesterday).

   Just this entire hysteria is reaching the parody level now which is sad for those who may have been seriously harmed.

5. Leftists aren’t good people. They are often the worst of humanity, and besides, their experiences have also broken them and made them easier to manipulate and control by both humans and elohim.

   Franken is considered a priest leader, but broken people need priest leaders.

6. Assuming nothing much, much worse comes along Franken will be forced to walk the gauntlet while the mob yells ‘shame, shame, shame’ for a couple of days and then it will be all good.

   I mean, he is a Democrat.

7. Now Congress can apply the same standard to Franken, that it has already applied to Moore. I await with bated breath the calls for Franken’s removal. As, otherwise they stand revealed as hypocritical accomplices. But… we already knew that.

8. I agree the photo only shows Franken is a creep. Smiling while he thinks it is humorous to pretend to grope a sleeping woman would banish any male member of my family, including my sons. So according to thinkprogress we believe the accusers when a gop is accused, but when a ‘progressive’ is accused it is merely “drag a fifty dollar bill across a trailer park and who knows what you will find” flash in the pan?

   In my book. once a creep, always a creep. No second chances. Where Moore is concerned I need evidence, not something in a high school year book, and definitely something where Allred is not involved. Nina Burleigh said it all when it comes to women on the left. Then there is Whoopi on Polanski, “It wasn’t rape-rape” after he was convicted of drugging and raping a 13 year old.

9. She’s wearing a digital camo flack vest or plate carrier.

   And he is in fingertip contact with that.

   I have no idea whether anyone sleeping could feel the minimal contact he is making in order to clown salaciously for the camera.

   Why he might have figured that a random sleeping woman kitted up with protective military gear would – absent any context – would provide a humorous prop for his molester’s pose is obscure.

   Unless of course, there was a context; and the gag is that he is “jokingly” relieving what was recognized by others as his preexisting but frustrated desire.

   “Ah, now that she is asleep … ha ha ha “

10. It is hard to imagine anyone “copping a feel” over a flak jacket. And, she discovered this happened when the picture was posted after the trip. A childish joke.

11. Just right click on the picture and “save as” to the “desktop”. Then you can open the jpeg with picture viewer and enlarge it all you want.

    He is in some contact.

    Then right click the stored image and send it to the recycle bin, and to permanent deletion, where it belongs.

12. Thanks Neo…I was hoping to get your duly considered measured response.

    I care not one whit about “actual contact” you know like in “rape-rape”.

    He thinks making out like he’s grabbing the breasts of a sleeping woman is funny…
    He would show no quarter…so none should be shown.

    If he doesn’t resign then in EVERY 2018 campaign ad for someone with an R after their name, THIS is front and center against EVERY D.

    Tar them all with that wide brush.
    Make your enemies live up to their own rules.

13. Ok, this stuff has now become tedious and tiring, for me at least.

    I get it, whether it is the #metoo thing or a counter punch by Moore (or his supporters), or something else people are using these allegations to go after people they don’t like or with which they disagree.

    It’s all rather unseemly to me as it belittles more serious and severe cases of harassment and rape.

14. John Guilfoyle:

    I understand that that’s the tactical response in politics.

    I write about politics here, among other things. But I’m a lot more interested in truth, as best I can ascertain it.

15. DNW:

    I don’t see contact for various reasons, including the shadows. But from that angle you can’t tell definitively anyway—sort of like the angles of some slo-mo replays in sports.

16. The camera has a flash that is probably 4 to 10 inches directly above the lens. This is done to reduce or prevent “red eye” where the pupils light up like reflectors. But it also casts strong under shadows.

    I’d say that at least a couple fingers of each hand are touching. But with a flak vest like that, you could probably gently drum your fingers on it, with no sensation to the person wearing it.

    I agree with Neo that the picture doesn’t amount to much, though I can see that it might also be a bit humiliating to Tweeden to discover it after the fact.

17. calling someone to quit over a petty joke like this is stupid.

18. Pretty safe prediction: this will be the first of multiple accusations against Franken

    Also pretty safe prediction: he will not resign, no matter how plentiful or serious the allegations become.

    And besides, Whoopi Goldberg will assure us, it’s not “groping groping”. Because…he’s a Democrat.

    If he does resign, Gov. Dayton appoints Betsy Hodges. Yikes!

    But perhaps the the GOP would draft John Hinderaker. That’d be awesome!

19. Dave Says:
    November 16th, 2017 at 5:44 pm
    calling someone to quit over a petty joke like this is stupid.

    Spoken like a Leftist defending Ted Kennedy’s little joke.

20. It looks the same to me he’s reaching as if he is groping her but looking closely you can see shadows under his hands.

21. First – it is one photo, a snapshot in time. What happened before or after that snapshot? Since she admitted that she was not aware of the photo until after, then it was either a minor touch or she was so tired that she would not have felt anything.

    By her words, it was after a two-week USO tour, she was exhausted and she did fall asleep with the gear on. It is feasible that additional groping could have happened and she would not have woken up. And, if I was going to on a 24+ hour trip on a military plane, I think I would have taken the gear off.

    Second – in her description of the tour, Franken continued do stupid things during the tour, including drawing in horns on her picture that she signed for the troops. The harassment or a threat of retaliation continued during the tour.

    Third – he posed for the picture. Didn’t he think that the picture would emerge at a point in time? He seems to be confident that it would not matter – therefore, doesn’t that mean that he had power over the innocent? Power, that seems to be a criteria for these matters.

    He is stupid – he created a sexist skit “for the troops”, which she agreed to go along, thinking that she had an out by turning her head. She stated that she did not report it since it was the beginning of the tour and she did not want to impact the tour – essentially, she tolerated the harassment for a bigger purpose – the entertainment of the troops.

    This seems to be a very legit harassment issue. But, an issue would be when an bad action should be considered? If Franken is excused on the point that this happened in 2006, before he became a senator, then why should a 40-year old allegation be a factor in throwing out the results of an election? Before the election is even held?

22. I have disliked Franken ever since he entered politics, as a Dem of course. So, I was hoping for trouble for him. But, as Neo says, it’s “small potatoes”. Even tiny ones. I recall Steve Martin, in a mainstream movie, doing a similar breast feel, while smirking and looking back (at the camera). Also, Tweeden is a performance artist and should have been able and was able to deal with a moderately aggressive man. I suspect that her career has slumped and she is happy to have a bit of publicity now.

23. Alan F,

    You might be correct, but really? If it was your daughter, grandchild, or neice? If that is okay, that is okay, and you get to take that to your grave. Harsh, yes. I am stubborn and unforgiving, that’s just me. YMMV

    I am an outlier these days so pay no attention to my comments.

24. Quite a lot of moral relativism posted here today by the “no big deal” crowd. The “finding” of shadows, the fingertips that do not touch just because the palms do not touch. Can’t see any shadows beneath Al’s fingertips, can we?

    When is a grope a grope? Or, to recouch in Whoopie the Pig’s term, “grope-grope”. When is it an almost-grope?

    A certain level of model decorum should exist in the world’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

    Face it, people, the photo shows that Franken is a porker. Always has been, too.

25. I saw a GOP guru’s response to the Franken pic on Lou Dobbs tonight: “Well, he was not a senator then”.
    Judge Moore was not a senator 40 years ago either, but neither the GOPer nor Dobbs’ fill-in made that point.

26. I see contact and that is enough for me.

27. I think his fingers on his right hand were touching her. More disturbing is the smirk on his face and posing for the picture – taken by his brother- that was included in a CD of the trip. So he knew she would see it. He wanted her humiliated.

28. The problem is if we play this game too calling for someone to quit an elected position whenever it’s someone from the left we are emboldening the weaponisation of sexual assault accusations. The correct tactic is pointing out the hypocrisy of the left covering up for their own to deweaponize sexual assault accusations, not joining the fun of the witch hunt, we will never play this game as well as they do. Remember how much fun the right was having destroying Harvey Weinstein, then the left use the sentiment of anti sexual harassment hyped up with help from the right to try to destroy one from our side Roy Moore. they lost an Hollywood over the hill producer, so what, we potentially could lose a senate seat, they win by taking out our bishop by giving up merely a pawn, is it worth it?

29. To whom do we point out the hypocrisy? Some on the left do it a-purpose, so they won’t be moved. Some do it and don’t know it and can’t be convinced they’re not supremely right in all they do and say.
    The rest consist of a group of zero.
    Okay, we point out the hypocrisy to the rest of the population. It’s a long shot to think it’s not already obvious.
    So either the right evens the score and we go along this way, or the right makes it such a catastrophe to have started this that the left quits.

    Have I missed anything?

30. I recall a George Carlin monologue that according to his Catholic upbringing coping a feel was not just a single sin it was at least seven sins. It was a sin to think about it. A sin to plan it. A sin to set it up. etc, etc . Then a sin to actually do it. So even if the picture of Franken is not conclusive, many sins were committed to get to that point. As Doonesbury concluded viz Nixon, Guitlty! Guilty! Guilty!

31. I don’t understand the legalistic finding of shadows as if this was a frozen moment without continuation as it undoubtedly was not.

32. So no harm, no foul, if you go on a business trip and afterwards you find a photo in a DVD collection of photos of that trip of one of your co-workers (fellow contractors in this instance) purposely posing as groping you?

    Not only is it sophomoric and workplace sexual harassment, but it was purposely included in the distribution which show intent to humiliate.

    Perhaps a standard for a jackass entertainer, but not the standard for US senator, if we believe the rhetoric coming out against Moore.

33. Woman: How do I know you won’t grope me in my sleep?

    Al Franken: You don’t but you can check the photos we’ll send out to everyone on the trip.

    Decent man: You don’t know me very well so let me explain. If I ever grope you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me and you’ll be consenting.

34. Ymar Sakar:

    No, NOT spoken like a leftist defending Ted Kennedy’s little joke.

    What an absurd comparison. I’m surprised that you would make it.

    What’s more, leftist defending Ted Kennedy is blue defending blue.

    Dave calling Franken’s joke—which was an actual joke, although in very poor taste—petty and not worth asking Franken to quit over is red defending blue.

    There’s a world of difference

35. JK Brown:

    What part of “slimy/creepy behavior,” and “do we really want to prosecute over something like this?,” “sophomoric,” and “a creepy act and a wrong one” do you not understand?

    How does that equate to “no harm, no foul”?

    If I saw a photo like that of me and a co-worker, I’d think he was slimy/creepy, sophomoric, etc.. But no, I would not consider myself grievously harmed and I wouldn’t think anyone should be fired for it. Call me old-fashioned or insufficiently thin-skinned, but that’s what I think.

    And I don’t think it has much relevance to senatorial duties over ten years later, either. If he was my senator and I liked him, I wouldn’t want him to leave the senate. I can’t stand Franken and wouldn’t vote for him for plenty of other reasons, however.

36. miklos:

    But the photo is offered as evidence (or even proof) that he touched her. If a photo is offered as evidence of touching, it needs to show touching.

    You have no idea what happened after the photo, nor do I. But to me, it looks like a posed moment. Now, perhaps the hand action continued towards her and he touched her. Perhaps it ended right there and he was just posing for a photo and never touched her. We don’t know.

    The word “legalistic” is an interesting one. People often use it pejoratively. But I see legalistic thinking as standing between us and the mob. It is one of the foundations of western civilization, a protection for the individual against injustice.

    That’s not to say that the law protects us from all injustice. Of course it doesn’t. But it’s the best instrument humankind has ever come up with to attempt to do that.

37. neo-neocon Says:
    November 16th, 2017 at 11:40 pm
    ..

    The word “legalistic” is an interesting one. People often use it pejoratively. But I see legalistic thinking as standing between us and the mob. It is one of the foundations of western civilization, a protection for the individual against injustice.

    That’s not to say that the law protects us from all injustice. Of course it doesn’t. But it’s the best instrument humankind has ever come up with to attempt to do that.
    * * *

    I totally agree.
    Cue “Man For All Seasons” clip – I think we all know which scene I mean.

    I think the pejorative implication belongs to the same class as the realization that, even though we laud “the rule of law” most people don’t like lawyers.

    (In the abstract anyway; when I challenge friends about other friends who are lawyers, the response is pretty much “well I mean all the rest of them.”)

38. “…and I wouldn’t think anyone should be fired for it.”

    You and I are of similar age, but that is not the sexual harassment training I got over and over during my career with the federal government. Obviously, those with political connections were relatively safe, but anyone else would be lucky to be able to collect their things before being hustled out the door.

    One question not asked given this revelation is Can women safely travel as part of a USO tour? Can they risk falling asleep on military or government-contract aircraft or other unsecured places? Does the DoD need to assign some responsible 20 yr old sergeants to babysit future senators among the touring entertainers?

39. JK Brown:

    If he didn’t touch her, she was safe. Not safe from a nasty, creepy joke, but safe in the senses that matter. I do not want to make the world safe from nasty, creepy jokes.

    Nor are we talking about Franken going on a USO tour anymore. He’s not doing that.

    You know, there are plenty of serious sexual crimes that occur, where women are actually unsafe. This was not one of them.

    What Weinstein is alleged to have done involved making women unsafe. Polanski definitely made women (actually, a young girl) unsafe. There are gradations of sexual offenses, with many levels in between. This is at the very lowest level, or nearly the lowest level.

40. I could see opposing attorneys arguing this over in court. One takes the “shadows” side and one “a moment in time” side.

    So, it’s an OJ verdict — failure to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but wins a civil suit against him.

41. JK Brown Says:
    November 16th, 2017 at 11:18 pm
    Woman: How do I know you won’t grope me in my sleep?

    Al Franken: You don’t but you can check the photos we’ll send out to everyone on the trip.

    Decent man: You don’t know me very well so let me explain. If I ever grope you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me and you’ll be consenting.

    * *
    Well-played.

    Judging from Joss Whedon’s comments about contemporary events, however, I don’t think he ever really understood his own characters.

    One of the saddest moments in the decline of academia was the castigation of the professor with the original quote posted on his office door: it was “a threat” that the snowflakes just couldn’t bear.

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/university-wisconsin-firefly-_b_985486.html

    (it’s safe to read: the story is by Greg Lukianoff of FIRE)

42. Frog Says:
    November 16th, 2017 at 7:46 pm
    I saw a GOP guru’s response to the Franken pic on Lou Dobbs tonight: “Well, he was not a senator then”.
    Judge Moore was not a senator 40 years ago either, but neither the GOPer nor Dobbs’ fill-in made that point.
    * * *
    That’s bipartisanship in action: the Republicans get the partisanship, and the Democrats get the bye.

43. Carol:

    Either he wanted her humiliated, or he thought she had a Saturday Night Live sense of humor as sophomoric as his.

    But wanting her humiliated by a stupid joke over ten years ago, although sophomoric, is not a reason to drum someone out of the Senate.

44. I think all of this brouhaha over sexual shenanigans of ever-decreasing import are a Russian plot to distract us from their coups in the Middle East and Europe.

    Is Gloria Allred a Putin agent?

45. the whole grabbing her head thing means to me there will be others. It’s not the same as sneaking in a regular kiss. So; agree this isn’t enough on its own… but…

46. At least the witch hunts haven’t come to this … yet.
    http://www.melaniephillips.com/lurch-cultural-fascism/

    “Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke was suspended from the party without being told what he was accused of having done. He told his constituency association last Thursday:

    “I received a call from a journalist just after 9pm on Friday evening saying he had heard I was having the whip withdrawn in time for the 10 o’clock news and asked me what was going on,” he said. “I said I had absolutely no idea. Minutes later I received a call from the chief whip telling me that serious allegations had been made against me earlier that week and that these had been passed to the police. I asked what the allegations were and he would not tell me.

    He added:

    “It is also a denial of justice when people who have had allegations made against them, lose their job or their party whip without knowing what those allegations are. I believe this is fundamentally wrong. Wrong because it’s an injustice to those who stand accused, but also wrong because it undermines our values as a country.”

    Too right. Not only does this undermine British values, it has destroyed a human being. The former Welsh minister Carl Sergeant, who was sacked from his political post and suspended from the Welsh Labour Party because he was accused of “unwanted attention, inappropriate touching or groping” but without ever even being told exactly what he was supposed to have done, hanged himself last week.”

47. Why the tsunami of accusations once the tipping point was reached (Cosby, not Weinstein).

    http://www.melaniephillips.com/new-morality-patrol/

    “Why, though, has all this erupted now? It is said that powerful men have always sexually abused women but only now do these victims have the language and confidence to talk about it. This explanation is implausible and inadequate. I think we are seeing the explosive confluence of two deep social trends: the lifestyle free-for-all of the past half century and the culture of victimhood claimed by certain permitted groups.

    Obviously, there’s nothing new about men employing sexually inappropriate behaviour, from crude remarks through unwanted approaches and harassment all the way to assaults and rape. I do believe, though, that this is happening today on a far wider scale than in earlier times for this simple reason: that the rules of sexual behaviour which once existed have been shredded. And it was women who tore them up.
    ..
    The result of all this cultural mayhem has almost certainly been an exponential increase in male sexual misbehaviour. Not only have the rules of the sexual game been comprehensively junked so that many men no longer know what if any such social codes still apply, [AF: until afterwards– sometimes long after] but the trashing of masculinity has driven more of them into ever more extreme stereotypical male behaviour in order to prove their own sexual identity to themselves.

    And now they’ve run smack up against that perverse feature of our licentious age — the simultaneous imposition of virtue by people whose untouchable claim to victimhood means that, in the cause of standing up to the abuse of power, they feel licensed to abuse power themselves.

    So now we see women turning themselves into a kind of feminist morality patrol complete with informers, secret information networks, public denunciation, unverifiable allegations and a righteous determination to destroy all those who have transgressed the rules women have remade in their own image.

    One small step, it would seem, from Sodom to Salem.”

48. Aesop Fan has a point. I can remember that in the 1970s, things were accepted that wouldn’t be accepted today. As an example, ordinary people went to see Deep Throat, and some brought teen children along. The sexual revolution wasn’t over, and folks didn’t know what the new rules were.

    Saturday Night Live had Buck Henry playing a creepy babysitter to preteens, for laughs. Who was one of the key writers? Al Franken.

    It should also be understood that if it had been George Clooney, that wouldn’t have happened. Clooney doesn’t have to create a situation where the gal has to kiss him. Gals want to kiss him. They don’t want to kiss Franken.

    One point: if there’s a senator most likely to twist your words and actions in the worst possible interpretation, it’s sanctimonious Al Franken. This is truly a case of sowing the wind, and reaping a whirlwind.

49. The photograph, alone, is just bad taste in humor, however, when it is coupled with the rest of Tweeden’s story, the “prank” takes on a far darker and meaner tone. If you believe Tweeden’s story, Franken held her rejection of his kiss against her for the entirety of the tour- the “groping” photograph was one last insult he directed her way since he clearly intended for her to see it at some point after she awoke. If Tweeden is telling the truth about the incident, and I have no real reason to not believe it, Franken not only comes across as a bit of creep, but a mean and nasty one at that.

50. Regarding the latest Witch! Witch! Witch!, here’s Victor Davis Hanson on “From One Frenzy to the Next”:

    https://amgreatness.com/2017/11/13/from-one-frenzy-to-the-next/

51. I guess the photo was taken just after a good squeeze.

52. Thank you for including this piece of information, which I have not seen reported anywhere else:

    “I wanted to shout my story to the world with a megaphone to anyone who would listen, but even as angry as I was, I was worried about the potential backlash and damage going public might have on my career as a broadcaster.

    But that was then, this is now. I’m no longer afraid.”

    It’s clear that what she is no longer afraid of is harm to HER CAREER. Because the witch-hunt mentality has changed the situation–now it may help her career.

    It’s not a matter of principle for her at all. And apparently she thinks that’s fine. Very troubling.

    Thank you, neo, for caring about the truth. On principle.

53. JK Brown Says:
    November 17th, 2017 at 12:02 am
    “…and I wouldn’t think anyone should be fired for it.”
    * * *
    I first started being wary of the witch hunt mentality when a couple of presidential appointees were rejected because they had hired illegals as nannies. Even though I don’t think illegal aliens should be employed by anyone, that was such a picayune excuse I couldn’t believe it was a deal-breaker (any flaw in a storm though, if you are a politician opposing said appointee).

    The reason for my disgust was not at the idea that government appointees should at least follow the law in letter if not in agreement with it, but because many of the people who rejected them were guilty of behavior just as objectionable or worse.

54. Re: Photo
    It’s not whether he touched her or not – the photo doesn’t show him touching and as pointed out she probably would have awakened. The ‘sin’ is that she could not give any consent. This photo, mocking her, was taken and then widely distributed among all those on that trip – and probably more. Given the context over the two weeks in which he harassed her in other ways the photo should not have been taken and is a form of harassment.

55. Sarah Rolph Says:
    November 17th, 2017 at 9:33 am…
    “..But that was then, this is now. I’m no longer afraid.”

    It’s clear that what she is no longer afraid of is harm to HER CAREER. Because the witch-hunt mentality has changed the situation—now it may help her career.
    It’s not a matter of principle for her at all. And apparently she thinks that’s fine. Very troubling.
    * * *
    That seems to be the motherlode running through all of the exposes these days.
    My question is: what did she have to be afraid of? Franken wasn’t her boss, was he, or in control of her employment? Was it just fear of retribution for “spreading rumors” about someone with greater popularity and power (what does power mean for Franken ? – Weinstein I understand).

    Or did she realize that her experience was so “normal” in her profession that people would just think she was an idiot for complaining about what we know now was on the lower-tier* of the sex games in show biz?

    Through it all, only a very few — and that just so very recently — had any regard for the lives and careers of the other women who might be next in line with their abuser.

    If your career matters that much to you, maybe it’s time to rethink your goals in life.

    *see next comment

56. * continued
    I was active in our HS drama productions in the sixties. During one play, the romantic leads were required to kiss. It was a very innocuous buss even in the context of the play itself, which was not a salacious one — something like Maria and Captain von Trapp, although I don’t really remember now — funny how memory fails when decades pass.

    Anyway, I do remember the Heroine coming off stage looking disgusted and telling the rest of us girls, “He Frenched me!”

    She didn’t complain to the director, the boy didn’t lose his part in the play, the rest of us weren’t required to take anti-harassment classes, and nobody had to see a psychiatrist then or later.

    Now, you could argue that this is the attitude is the gateway drug that leads to Cosby and Weinstein (who apparently were committing their depredations that long ago), but most of us can tell the difference between rude, crass, boorish, caddish behavior such as my Play Boy’s (Franken and others) and assault & rape (Polanski, Cosby, Weinstein — and others).

    In Jane Austen’s time and later, there were societal conventions that were in operation to keep the young women away from the cads and the predators, but the Sixties threw all of that overboard.

57. I quite agree with Aesop Fan @12:57 AM, and Gordon, who follows him.

    I am disturbed by Neo’s seeming minimization of Franken’s conduct (his lifelong conduct, I suspect). Though she will complain at my characterization that she is focused on a legalistic rather than a moral approach to the matter.
    The photo is not, emphatically not, a “joke about groping”. That sounds like a lawyer defending a client, an attribution of innocent motive which is not at all apparent to many if not most of us. Such a joke requires dual party consent.

    We have descended into a social maelstrom where unsupported allegations of remote, undesired MALE sexual overtures are accepted at face value. Here we have a photo, hard evidence. There is a difference. Not only by the photo, but by biology: unsought sexual advances by women to men are quickly overcome by the male hormonal and neurological features designed into men.

58. Relevant: http://freebeacon.com/columns/great-american-earthquake

59. The argument could be made it is only harassment if she thinks it is, which if the photographer hadn’t snapped the photo, she might never have known about.

    It certainly is juvenile behavior…something you might expect from teenagers. And he thought it was funny?

60. If all of these charges and counter-charges are important enough to be brought up now, were they were important enough to be brought up then? If people chose not to bring them up then, then why do they choose to bring them up now? Could politics and victimhood power gathering have anything to do with it?

    What behavior was minimally acceptable in the past is now totally unacceptable. Is it really appropriate to apply present standards of behavior to the past? How were they to know which standards would change? Are there universal standards to which we should all adhere no matter the historical perspective? If so, what are they? Religion used to provide an answer to that question; what provides it now…..political correctness, that changes almost hourly?

    We all choose which windmills to tilt throughout our lives. Have we really tilted all the important ones now so that we can go back in the past and choose to tilt those we passed by then? Going back and tilting those windmills now seems to me to be using them for other purposes.

    This all seems to be a silly distraction from working on the important problems we have today. I think I’ll stick to working on today’s windmills and after I get them tilted then I’ll go back and tilt those of yesteryear.

61. Franken didn’t have to touch her. It’s sufficient that he demonstrated and exalted in the vulnerability of an unconscious woman. I’m surprised that she was not sleepless and paralyzed by this revelation.

62. Frog:

    You write that you characterized my approach to the matter as “legalistic rather than a moral approach.”

    I wouldn’t have thought the choice was either/or. Do you understand that this is true?:

    I see legalistic thinking as standing between us and the mob. It is one of the foundations of western civilization, a protection for the individual against injustice.

    That’s not to say that the law protects us from all injustice. Of course it doesn’t. But it’s the best instrument humankind has ever come up with to attempt to do that.

    In the final analysis, law is an attempt, flawed though it may be, to codify and systemize a society’s morals about human behavior. Not all of its morals, particularly the ones on which people differ (for example, is it okay to curse—blasphemy used to be a crime here and it no longer is because we no longer consider blasphemy within the purview of the law). Moral sexual mores are definitely part of the law, and there are laws against rape and unwanted sexual touching of a more minor sort, and these are laws meant to enforce morality and in particular the liberty of the individual and his or her right to make his or her own decisions about his or her body and how it is used.

    Offenses are defined and punished on a scale under the law from very major (murder, rape) to very minor (misdemeanors). It is essentially a scale based on morality—the amount of harm to the person, for example. Law is not arbitrary; it is flawed, of course (like all human institutions) but it is designed to be fair and it is designed to reflect and enforce moral codes.

    So your distinction is a false one. It is also false because I have already condemned what Franken did in the moral sense when I wrote that it was “a creepy act and a wrong one” and “slimy/creepy behavior.” However, it was a joke, and I have no idea why you write “The photo is not, emphatically not, a joke about groping.” It is most definitely a joke about groping. A creepy/slimy joke, a sophomoric joke, meant to mock the woman. That is based on my very strong perception that he didn’t actually touch her, which I have explained. If he did, it becomes a bigger offense, a groping that is, however, fairly minor in the moral and legal scheme of things compared to other offenses. It would ordinarily and typically be classed as a misdemeanor, if charges were brought. (See this for an example under the laws of Connecticut; I have no idea what law would apply to the Franken photo, which was taken during a flight).

    So the joke without touching is not a criminal offense of any sort, not even a misdemeanor. The joke with touching is most likely a misdemeanor (I believe the same would be true of the French kiss—a misdemeanor, although I’m not sure, but at any rate that offense rests merely on her description and cannot be proven, unlike the touching or near-touching).

    And it matters whether it was an actual touching or a pretend/joke-touching. It matters not just in the legal sense but in the moral sense. Both are objectionable. Both took place before Franken was a senator. Neither offense rises to the level of needing to remove him from office.

    I really do see this as a form of witch hunt. Minor offenses will be dug up on everyone (all men, anyway) in order to affect politics. My guess is that most men in politics have a sexual skeleton or two in their closets. And all of them can be the subject of untrue accusations, of course. I would rather focus on serious allegations that are provable.

63. Dave calling Franken’s joke–which was an actual joke, although in very poor taste–petty and not worth asking Franken to quit over is red defending blue.

    There’s a world of difference

    The absurd comparison is that you think Dave is the red defending the blue.

    Red vs blue here, another false dichotomy.

    Spoken like a Leftist defending Ted Kennedy’s little joke.

    In case you hadn’t noticed, Neo, a simile does not require there to be a world of difference. A simile is based on a matter of commonality, not on the difference.

    a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox ).
    

    Dare I say it is that it is surprising that you would think otherwise?

    Then again, not much surprises me. If Dave is “blue”, then my simile works. If he is “red”, then it works even better. Alt Right understands how to use similes and metaphors. Ever seen the meme posters.

    Face it, people, the photo shows that Franken is a porker. Always has been, too.

    But for potential Trum supporters, it would be different if it was Trum up there instead of Franken. People and humans in general, do outrageous things because of a desire for power. They are desperate. They are panicked. They don’t care where their herd is being driven off a cliff, so long as they are doing something to escape the danger.

    The Left is escaping global warming and right wing conspiracies. The anti Left is escaping the Left and the Deep State and various conspiracies.

    Same manipulated humans behaving in the end, walking along with the judas goats to the slaughter house.

    we will never play this game as well as they do.

    What happened to your fight fire with fire idea, Dave? Poison with poison? Alinsky vs Alinsky?

    How easy the millennials and younger generations bend knee to the exigencies of real power and politics.

64. Ymarsakar:

    You think Dave is a liberal Democrat? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

    And comparisons (metaphors, similes) don’t need exact equivalences, but they need some sort of proportionality to make sense or to make the point. Yours lacked all proportionality and therefore lacked sense.

65. Sarah Rolph said:
    ‘…I was worried about the potential backlash and damage going public might have on my career as a broadcaster. But that was then, this is now. I’m no longer afraid.”

    It’s clear that what she is no longer afraid of is harm to HER CAREER. Because the witch-hunt mentality has changed the situation—now it may help her career.

    It’s not a matter of principle for her at all. And apparently she thinks that’s fine. Very troubling.

    ~~~~
    I don’t know if it will help her career, but I’m not too surprised at the fear of damaging one’s career. I think Neo posted not too long ago about moral courage. Personally, would I have gone public about something repulsive happening with someone with a lot of clout in my industry? I don’t know if I could. It’s pretty easy to throw stones and say what other people should have done.

    I’m a pretty upfront person, but could still see being taken aback by some of the behavior that we’ve been reading about. Would I have been able to potentially destroy my career going after someone if it’s doubtful people would support me?

    And don’t forget, many people tend to blame themselves when “sexual misconduct” (for lack of a better phrase) happens. We get racked with guilt and self-doubt. (I am NOT talking about professional victims where an errant word will cause an uproar.)

66. (Con’t. ) So if you have guilt that you may have played a role in an event, even if you didn’t, and you know that you will be attacked and ridiculed, shutting up and moving on can be very reasonable reactions.

67. Obviously he was doing it as a joke, do you believe if his intention was to sexual assault this lady for his own gratification he would 1) take a picture as a tangible evident to prove his guilt 2) have the photographer standing there witnessing the whole event 3) giving the picture back to the the lady to provide her an evidence to press charges

    the circumstances were different 10 years ago as these jokes were more acceptable before the left fully engaged in identity politics. This photo serves no more purposes that highlighting the hypocrisy of the left but that is it. He went over the line but e apologized, the right had a fun day humiliating him, everyone got what they wanted, case closed.

    It is not about winning political points against your opponents but applying equal standards to both sides and looking at the big pictures. playing this witchhunt games with the libs don’t benefits the right at all. If the right keep pushing the envelope calling for his resignation, the left do the unthinkable and canned him to show their dedication to the cause of eliminating sexual assaults completely in social, how will the right match it? the right will be forever abide to the same standards and play the same game. Next time a picture is taken where a republican elbowed a woman on her chest by accident and the left ask for his resignation how will the right response if the precedent of a senator resigning over a picture has been established…

68. Anyone remember Bob Packwood?

    He’s the gold standard for expulsions from Congress, though he resigned before being expelled.

    ….”In the end, he said, he was a victim of “dogmatic women,” and wrote in his diary that he didn’t know what all the fuss was about. “I am accused of kissing women,” Packwood wrote, “on occasion of perhaps overeagerly kissing women, and that is the charge–not drugging, not robbing, kissing.””

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/bob-packwood-lobbying-politics-103966

    But isn’t the offense still more about abuse of power, than the boorish behaviour of pawing women? Or shouldn’t it be?

69. neo-neocon Says:
    November 17th, 2017 at 1:36 pm
    Frog:

    You write that you characterized my approach to the matter as “legalistic rather than a moral approach.”

    I wouldn’t have thought the choice was either/or. Do you understand that this is true?:

    I see legalistic thinking as standing between us and the mob. It is one of the foundations of western civilization, a protection for the individual against injustice.
    …

    In the final analysis, law is an attempt, flawed though it may be, to codify and systemize a society’s morals about human behavior.
    * * *
    “Legalistic” v. “moral” might refer more to style and tone than to substance.
    A situation described in “moral” terms will tend to be more narrative and free-flowing, with an emphasis on emotional aspects and reference to religion or philosophy and psychology.
    A situation described in “legalistic” terms will tend to be more formally organized, with an orderly progression of logical propositions, and references to law and history.
    That’s my take, anyway.
    I tend to be more legalistic, myself, so I enjoy the way Neo presents arguments and evidence (or theories).
    YMMV

70. Julia Says:
    November 17th, 2017 at 2:15 pm
    … and you know that you will be attacked and ridiculed, shutting up and moving on can be very reasonable reactions.
    * * *
    One of the things that has struck me about the sexual escapade cases is how similar the victims’ reasoning is: “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to cause trouble, mostly for me.”

    How is this different from the way many of us put up with psychological and verbal abuse from people who dislike our politics, because we don’t want to cause trouble and hurt our careers, family relationships, etc.

    And because they can get away with the “soft” abuse, where standing up to the SJWs will cost your career. (Franken et al.), Antifa arises and the university PC enforcers move on to hard abuse (Weinstein et al.).

    However, as Jordan Peterson has shown, sometimes you can move on to another career, because “those that are for you” may well be just as many and as powerful as “those that are against you” — and you will never find that out until you take a risk.

    (Rachel Fulton Brown aka Fighting Bear is another academic example.)
    (Martin Luther is one of the stand-outs historically.)

    But fear can be a powerful thing, and none of us know what we will do until faced with the choices.

71. Franken’s violation of an unconscious woman’s space is not in question. However, allegations of sexual assault, a criminal action, are. Let him have his due process in a court of law, not in a trial by press under a quasi-legal standard established by preponderance of allegations.

72. n.n Says:
    November 17th, 2017 at 11:00 pm
    Franken’s violation of an unconscious woman’s space is not in question. However, allegations of sexual assault, a criminal action, are. Let him have his due process in a court of law, not in a trial by press under a quasi-legal standard established by preponderance of allegations.
    * * *
    Franken’s party started this round of the game of trial by press.
    Their turn.

    And this, which I did not remember from the time.
    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/11/how-anita-hill-betrayed-feminism.php

    “Yesterday, I discussed how feminists betrayed feminism by defending Bill Clinton against credible and, in one notorious case admitted, allegations of serious sexual misconduct. These allegations were made just a few years after the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy had put the issue of sexual harassment front-and-center in the nation’s consciousness. Feminists (except those who knew Thomas personally) believed Hill’s claims. And they argued (just as they do today) that, ordinarily, female accusers should be believed.

    But when Bill Clinton became the subject of serious sexual harassment allegations, feminists refused to credit the claims or, when forced to credit to do so, discounted them as irrelevant. They also attacked the accusers. Consequently, the heightened consciousness of the problem of sexual harassment that existed following the Thomas-Hill hearings subsided after Clinton’s presidency.

    Even leftists now acknowledge this. For example, Matthew Yglesias says he “wonder[s] how much healthier a place we’d be in as a society today if Bill Clinton had resigned in shame back in 1998.” But given the wholehearted defense he received from feminists, Clinton was under no serious pressure to resign.

    In this post, I want to focus on one of the feminists who defended President Clinton. That feminist is Anita Hill.

    Few remember that Hill helped lead the feminist charge to defend Bill Clinton and preserve his presidency. Yet, she most certainly did.”

    RTWT

    There is something to be said for the idea of karma.

73. Neo:
    As you well know, legalism is not the barrier that separates us from a Hobbesian state.
    The Law is about debating; which lawyer, the pro or the con, will win the debate?
    A Hobbesian state has never existed.
    It is Natural Law that is important, and Natural Law is about edicts, not debates.

74. Frog:

    You’re describing the business and practice of law. I’m describing its philosophical underpinnings, which are a codification and detailed operationalism of natural law.

    I don’t think you understand what’s behind the law. You hate lawyers, I know, and that colors your perspective of law.

    And by the way, even the practice and business of law is NOT just a debate. That “debate” is not just a question of arguing. A lawyer follows certain hoary rules that have developed in order to attempt to help arrive at justice and to protect the accused, which is another philosophical decision our legal system makes (protecting the rights of the individual accused, that is, and following certain rules that apply to everyone, which is the principle of equality in the eyes of the law). The idea of the adversary system (which you describe as a “debate”) is that each person must follow rules and the judge has the final say on that, as an objective expert (hopefully, anyway) in the rules and in applying them equally and fairly. The rules include the precedents set by hundreds of years of decisions from similar courts. The idea (often not achieved, but it’s the idea and it’s the goal) is that each lawyer will do his or her level best to present the case of his/her client, and if the lawyers are evenly matched and competent, then justice will prevail.

75. Neo:
    I most assuredly do not hate lawyers; some of my closest friends, and one of my sons are lawyers. I have a personal go-to lawyer and an estate lawyer, both of whom I respect highly for their ethics.
    But I have been exposed to the practice of law many times, particularly in med mal cases in which I was a co-defendant.
    In my depositions I obviously experienced the exercise of the law and its procedures at first hand, particularly the frank and patently obvious misrepresentation of “facts” by plaintiff’s lawyers.
    I think it is reasonable for me to say that a) the plaintiff attorneys have been usually ignorant of the facts of the matter, and have not done even elementary homework; and b) do indeed try to trap defendants, typically by word games.
    On the other side there is “prosecutorial discretion”. Hah! Nifong that sucker!

    The players (lawyers) reflect on the game. It is often ugly. I will not give it more dignity than it deserves.

    Laws and Lawyers are found all over the planet. They do not as a rule defend mankind from the state of Hobbesian chaos.

76. Neo:
    The law in the US is the product of legislators, of whom the great overwhelming majority are lawyers.

    So lawyers write the law.

    It is widely agreed by both Left and Right that judges, those supposedly objective figures, all lawyers, are biased.
    Example: “The [Vox Labor Day] opinion article argued that the decline in unionization has harmed the well being of American workers thanks to a judicial system that favors employers.” (From Washington Free Beacon today)

    The law is what judges say the law is. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals however votes en banc very differently from the Third Circuit on issues of constitutionality. Different individual judges reach different conclusions on the same matter, as Federal District judicial decisions during the Trump era have shown. That is in effect geographically separated debates.

    Thus, our law is not Natural Law, but human law. And that law, with a small L, is achieved by debate, argument, and wrangling. Which takes me back to my original point: Law is a debate between lawyers, and the better debater/jury persuader wins.

77. Frog:

    You simply don’t know what you’re talking about, Frog.

    See this, written in 2012:

    As you can see, the share of senators who were lawyers peaked at 51 percent in the 92nd Congress, which was in session in 1971 and 1972. It’s now at 37 percent. Banking and business have gradually been absorbing a larger share of the Senate, going from a low of 11.46 percent of senators in the 79th Congress (1945-46) to 20 percent in today’s Senate.

    And not surprisingly – given changes in the overall composition of the economy – agriculture contributes far fewer senators today than it did in the mid-20th century.

    The patterns are similar for the House of Representatives, although the share of lawyers there has fallen even more sharply: [a chart follows, showing the trend]

    Lawyers account for 23.91 percent of today’s House, down from a high of 42.56 percent in the 87th Congress (1961-62). Today there are also about as many representatives who previously worked in banking and business as there are lawyers, with bankers and businessmen making up 21.38 percent of the House.

    The chart doesn’t go back to the earliest days of the republic, but I can almost guarantee that the people who made the laws then were not predominantly lawyers, either, although of course some of them were.

    And then there are state legislatures, which pass state laws. In state legislatures, the percentage of lawyers is even lower. Here’s a survey of all 50 states, taken in 2015 (there’s a chart there, too). Nowhere does it even begin to approach 50%; even in states with a lot of lawyers, it is way under that:

    Lawyers haven’t vanished from every statehouse. In seven states – New Jersey, Louisiana, Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, Florida and Mississippi – the percentage of lawyer-legislators remains high, at more than 25 percent.

    It is highest in New Jersey, where 36 of 120 legislators, or 30 percent, are lawyers, according to the Stateline-NCSL survey…

    The states with the smallest share of lawyers generally are ones that pay lawmakers little for serving. In New Hampshire, where legislators earn $100 a year, just 13 of 424 legislators, or 3 percent, are lawyers, the lowest percentage in the nation.

    But not every low-paying state has a dearth of lawyers. That may be because lawyers’ flexible schedules allow them to serve, said Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri. Squire has been studying the makeup of state legislatures for more than three decades.

    In Texas, for example, legislative pay is among the lowest in the nation at $7,200 a year. Yet, 27 percent of legislators are lawyers.

    If you look at the chart, which gives an average for all state legislatures, the average percentage of lawyers in state legislatures was 22% in 1976, and it steadily declined until in 2015 it had reached 14.4%. In contrast, the percentage of business people was 36.3% in 1976 and 29.5% in 2015.

    And in the past, there were not so many lawyers in general in terms of percentage of the population, so my guess is that in the 1800s, for example, the percentages of lawyers in Congress and state legislatures was even lower than it is today.

    So, legislatures in the US have a variety of people in them and—unlike what you seem to think—do not consist of a “great overwhelming majority” (your words) of lawyers. Nor have they ever. By the way, legislatures are elected by the people, and the people can throw legislators out if they don’t like them and replace them with others.

    Judges are usually lawyers because most states require it (see this for a list of the states that don’t always require it), for the simple reason that judges must be familiar with the law (both statutory and common, the latter of which is traditional and cumulative and deals with precedent), which they interpret and administer and do not make (unless they are liberal activist judges, in which case their decisions are based on their liberalism rather than the fact that they are lawyers).

    Laws are not arbitrary, either, and judicial decisions are most definitely not arbitrary (especially by non-activist judges). They reflect the mores of a society, but in the end they are also ultimately based on natural law in this country at least. You can find legal scholars who disagree with that position, but I am of the school that agrees with it:

    Robert Lowry Clinton argues that the U.S. Constitution rests on a common law foundation and the common law, in turn, rests on a classical natural law foundation.

    You can read that whole Wiki entry; it’s long and complex, as are the arguments about all of this.

    As I said before, I know that you hate and despise lawyers. I think your entire point of view is colored by that. But it would be good to try to get your facts right; things such as what percentage of Congress and state legislative bodies are made up of lawyers are easily obtainable facts.

78. Neo:
    I acknowledge I overstated my case, but I will ask you, “Who writes the laws”? The businessmen, the physicians, the common man or woman in the legislatures?
    I have met many legislators in my life and >90% were lawyers.
    See California for what happens to the Will of the People: plebiscites overturned by single judges.
    I specifically wrote that I did not despise all lawyers, yet you insist that I do.
    I dispute the virtue blanket which you drape over the law.
    I do find myself in disagreement with some of your reasoning, which I do find “legalistic” in its arguments. Legalistic, as in misrepresenting a tree as a forest.

79. Frog:

    You have made many blanket negative statements (very negative) here about lawyers, for many years. I’m sure you don’t hate every lawyer in the world, but you dislike lawyers intensely and you bring it up quite a bit.

    So, big deal that 90% of the legislators you personally have met are lawyers. That means nothing and does not justify your statement that the “great overwhelming majority” of legislators are lawyers. It’s not even close.

    As for your question about who writes the laws, why don’t you try Googling it? Seriously, instead of making assumptions (like the one you made about what percentage of members of Congress are lawyers), why not just find out?

    Have you ever read a statute? I would imagine you have. You probably have found—as with just about any legal document—that it’s long, persnickety, and very detailed and complex. Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s because lawyers are persnickety a-holes who like to use “legalisms” to confuse everyone else and obfuscate what they’re doing? Or do you think there may be a reason laws are that way?

    You’re a doctor. Medical texts can be quite complex, too, and laypeople understand why that is. At least, most laypeople do. People go to doctors because they are specially trained in a certain field of expertise.

    Well, someday you should try writing a law and see how it turns out. You might find that unless you spell everything out in exhaustive detail, and try to make everything crystal crystal clear (or as clear as possible), the law won’t cover what you want it to and won’t achieve the goals you want, or will be impossible to understand. You might even find you need a lawyer—quelle horreur!—to help you write it.

    Lawyers are specialists in writing laws and interpreting laws (among other things), and dealing with legal language in general. Legal language has a purpose and its complexity has a purpose. It is not arbitrary. It is not something just anyone can suddenly do, although we all speak English and we all use words. Statutes need to cover all bases and be almost obsessively thorough. And even then, there are always matters that are open to interpretation—that’s what judges do. Or, sometimes, further legislation is needed in order to clarify or close an unforeseen loophole.

    But members of Congress don’t ordinarily write legislation. They ordinarily use the attorneys of this office. The legislators make suggestions as to what is needed (sometimes based on special interest groups they are trying to please, such as lobbyists). And each state has a similar process that goes on.

    That is the case with statutory law. Common law is made by courts (judges) based on precedent and interpretation of already existing law, and has its own lengthy tradition.

    Legislators do not write bills. They would have time to do nothing else if they did that—plus, since they are for the most part not lawyers, they would do a lousy job of it.

    I have never draped a “virtue blanket” over the law. I have said many times that the law is flawed, but it’s the best system we have ever come up with. I’m not in the business or the habit of seeing virtue blankets where they don’t exist. I have studied law and thought about it a good deal. I had no particular preconception about law before I studied it, but as I studied it I became very impressed with the difficulty of devising and implementing a system of law and making it clear. I think the truth is that our system is about as good as it gets. And that’s no “virtue blanket.” The entire process is flawed and always will be.

    Read the quote about Justice here, though, for the ideal and the goal.

80. I must confess in a very puritanc attitude: people who are playing with transgressive behavior, even jokingly, are revolting for me. Just as those who are playing with inflicting some pain to people, animals or even insects – not really, but just entartaining the idea. I see them as latent sadists, who can easily became actual sadists. May be, there is nothing legally or even moraly foul in this, but the very impulse betrays a deep moral rot in a person enjoying something that should be disgusting.

81. Frog Says:
    November 18th, 2017 at 7:53 pm
    Neo:
    I most assuredly do not hate lawyers; some of my closest friends, and one of my sons are lawyers. I have a personal go-to lawyer and an estate lawyer, both of whom I respect highly for their ethics.

    I could say the same thing about associates that are doctors.

    The Doctor Class and the Lawyer class have more in common than it might seem.

    Many are misinformed, but believe with religious fervor that they are “correct”.

82. You think Dave is a liberal Democrat? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

    I don’t care to label him, and as I said, what I find ridiculous are the labels: false dichotomies like red vs blue.

    Do people require more awakening before they figure it out?

83. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then why is it a surprise when you read what I write? I would think anyone would be surprised at reading what they require more information about.

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