Comments

1
Entirely correct. Extra points for owning your boss in this exchange.
2
Good luck with this. Divided we fall. I've fallen by the wayside because I don't believe the accusations were sexual harassment. I don't believe the anonymous sources at all. The Democratic Party by failing to stand up to a GOP assault on a strong ally has proven itself unworthy of support. By failing to allow the Senate Ethics committee to investigate the sources and the allegations the Democratic Party has proven that appearance is more important than law or ethics.

It is inherently unethical to burn a witch at the stake without a trial. The sacrifice of Al Franken on the holy stake of moral righteousness is an invitation for the GOP to unleash their unholy hounds against Democrats sitting in districts with Republican Governors.

Did you not see the woman from James O'Keefe's organization blatantly LIE to the WaPo Reporter regarding "Moore Raped Me" - To pretend that this example won't be the beginning of a hemorrhage of new accusations just as unfounded, just as unproven, will decimate the party.

No, the Democratic Party is unworthy of further support. If I'm to be represented by a worthless person let that person have an (R) by their name. I have never, nor will I ever vote for a Republican, but I will no longer ever vote for a Democrat again.
3
Indeed Sydney. If somebody's evaluating political algorithms before calling out sexual harassment, they'll never understand.
5
@4 60,000,000+ American's enabled Trump on Nov. 8th 2016. Never mind the 63,000,000+ Americans who said not on my watch.
6
I get where you're coming from, I really do. But if we truly care about the cause of women's rights in a general way, kicking Democrats out of office while Republicans stay there will be a net loss. Like, a huge net loss. So while the victims of abuse deserve justice--and future victims of known offenders deserve to not have their abusers enabled--the cost of that justice will likely end up being extremely high. That's just a fact, and it muddies the clarity of being on the side of the victim more than you seem to think.
7
I get where the writer is coming from, and for the most part agree, but it's also totally just shooting from the hip about one issue that will effect the safety and security of generations to come. In comparison to the souring climate, the loss of jobs with no safety net, the loss of women's rights in general, the loss of access to an open internet... my point is, you are either actively engaged politically as part of what we know now to be our process (as part of a negotiation against assholes on a wide spectrum of life altering and horrible issues), or you want radical change in our party system and process. Pick one and ride that train, I'd say.
8
@6: What is your calculus?
How many good votes for each sexual assault survivors per good vote in congress would be OK in your mind?
9
Another Democrat dirty trick. Forcing Franken to resign so they can look morally superior to rapists and pedophiles.
10
...I guess I just want the democrats to take a real fucking stand against Donald Trump who is tearing down our Federal Gov't brick by brick, I don't care if they call out people in the dem party as long as they are going to task taking that fucker down. And it really doesn't seem like they are. I certainly don't want to let any molester go scott free, either. Something has to give though because the order of operations here is fucked and we have to fix it before shit goes to shreds.
11
We got this far by fucking over women, another few years/decades/whatever are worth it, amirite?
12
I wonder why nobody said Ed Murray shouldn't resign until Trump does. Would anybody have bought that?
13
Basically, there are a good many people who despise the GOP AND see that DEMs are nothing more than 'GOP-lite'. A few social issues aside they are the same animal. The existing machinery for this behavior is deeply embedded. "Not as bad" on left, at best. So we need more than 2 parties. But a new progressive party would effectively hand all political power to GOP again for quite a while until a new party can get traction. My point? I hope to watch the GOP splinter into powerless in-fighting groups that finally spit out a Ross Perot-style wing-nut party to siphon nutcase voters toward. All the while keep burning out the dead wood in the DEM party.
14
Or maybe just a pithy new Democrat election slogan, "We are not raping your daughters!"
15
If the Dems had a functioning brain within their party they would of said that Franken would resign if Moore did not get elected.
16
Why is oneā€™s moral calculus based on someone elseā€™s actions? We donā€™t let perpetrators of assault off just because the ā€œother guyā€ murdered someone. This letting Franken off because ā€œheā€™s not Trumpā€ is dismaying, at best.

Sydney Brownstoneā€™s comments are spot on and need to be repeated.
18
@8, I don't have a calculus and I don't have easy answers. I just have nuance and complications that the author of this piece, and many of my fellow liberals, seem to have forgotten about in the rush for moral high ground.
19
Practicing realpolitik always leads to a loss of credibility with progressive constituencies, which points to the fallacy of pretending that leftists are "purists who make the perfect be the enemy of good" in order to better continue business as usual.
20
I accuse you of sexual harassment. I demand your resignation. Check and mate.
21
@6, 7, 18 A Democrat resigning does not automatically mean a Republican gets his seat, especially in a district like Franken's. The left can and must with candidates who aren't predators. If a party can't simultaneously address an issue like climate change and take my dignity and safety seriously, that party is not acting in my interests. How is this a debate?
22
@18: Do you think Franken shouldn't have resigned?
24
@23: your understanding is remarkably weak
26
@21 Well let's be perfectly clear, the assertion here is that Democrats are 'doing nothing' if they are not forcing those accused of harassment to resign. Public shaming, an ethics investigation, this is 'nothing'.

I deplore meathead attitudes toward women, and Franken may well be a meathead, but starting to get very worried that once again, as in about a year ago, we have here a case of the left devouring itself. From the outset I kind of suspected this grand 'reckoning' was only happening in the rarefied confines of the bubbles of left-leaning elites. And now I kind of suspect that the more absolutist the moral crusaders become the smaller that bubble gets.
27
@21: "district"? MN is a state. a state that recently had a Republican Senator, who's probably lining up his campaign right now: Norm Coleman. unless Michelle Bachman's planning a run.

@2: you're ridiculous. beyond franken, this is fascism that we're fighting, and when you go purist, they win.
28
Anyone who thinks democrats taking the moral high ground will shame republicans and make them look bad are forgetting that there are two different sets of rules.

Republicans won't be shamed. They won't look bad to their supporters because for republicans, treating women like shit is a feature, not a bug.

You can't win against them because they're playing a different game than you are.
29
The GOP already won. Nov 8th 2016, and today. A strong Democratic Senator on record challenged the sitting Attorney General - then a Hannity sycophant leveled a ludicrous charge, more women spoke up. Franken is gone.

Completely off-topic... Did you see that James O'Keefe sent a woman to the Washington Post to lie about being raped by Roy Moore to discredit the victims? No? I guess we need to treat every accusation as true and those actual victims of Moore are certainly well served by allowing the GOP to make false accusations with no validation of their claims. Good thing the Washington Post is more capable of discerning reality than the Democratic Party.
30
@11 Eat my shit, fuck yourself, and die a horribly painful death, shitbag.
Spoken like a true Republikkkan apologist.
31
@27 I should have used seat/state not district but the point stands that's it's not a given for Republicans (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dem…), as does Sydney's that telling women to get over sexual harassment/assault because it came from a guy on the right team is a losing strategy.
32
@28: A firing squad is too good for RepubliKKKans and their dupes
@29 Kelly L: Trumpzilla ad nauseum got bought in on November 8, 2017, aided by the Russians hacking the election for corporate interests. That's not winning; that's a rigged game, and it's not democracy. So don't blame the Democrats. Blame shameless RepubliKKKans playing dirty and using bullying tactics to inflict as much pain on the average U.S. citizen as inhumanly possible.
33
@32 - does it matter how the GOP won? The Democrats roll over and surrender anyway. I won't encourage you to stop voting for them. I understand the notion that they're better than the GOP. They're just not good enough. They haven't been in decades. I'm done. You don't have to be.
34
I couldn't agree more with this article.
35
@31: I wasn't challenging that a GOP victory is a given in MN. it's more likely, yes, but not a given. depends on who wins the primary and how the GOP will ratfuck them. a black muslim congressman, for instance.

it's a midterm election, when young dems historically are "too busy" to bother to vote. see: 2010.
36
@33:

So, your solution is to - what, exactly? - give up, walk away and let the monsters take over? Decrying that the Democrats are "not good enough" simply means you'll sit back, do nothing and allow those who are demonstrably worse to win. That's not a solution - that's precisely the same kind of "surrender" you say turned you off from them in the first place.
37
@27 "when you go purist, they win"

You already forget they won because you couldn't be arsed to offer a presidential candidate with reasonable public approval.
38
@35 "it's a midterm election, when young dems historically are "too busy" to bother to vote. see: 2010"

i.e. when the electorate had be motivated by Romneycare after being sold "change you can beleive in"
40
The GOP doesn't give a shit about metoo, and will be all too happy to be the party of rape and sexual assault if it offers more partisan grist. They aren't changing, and are actually getting worse by the day. Metoo's impact is exceedingly limited outside the entertainment and political industries, and taking down individual celebrities might be extremely cathartic but it's not going to have a structural impact when half the country doesn't care about it. This moment is nearing its end, and activists better work quick to transform it into a long-term strategy for change.
41
We can at least all admit that name recognition seems to be a prerequisite for metoo stories. That kind of limits it to the gawker universe, and leave all the other industries (the resource/energy sectors are chock full of harassment and yet curiously untouched by all this).
42
We can at least all admit that name recognition seems to be a prerequisite for metoo stories. That kind of limits it to the gawker celebrity universe, and leaves all the other industries (the resource/energy sectors are chock full of harassment) curiously untouched in all this.
43
@41:

When the #MeToo hashtag started appearing among my female Facebook friends I would say a significant majority posted it. And even though many are in the arts, I seriously doubt most of them were molested or harassed by A-List (or even B or C) Hollywood celebrities.
44
43: Fair enough. "Prerequisite" was far too strong of a word since obviously #MeToo goes far beyond Hollywood and DC. I was just talking about the high-profile stories, but ithat's really not fair.
45
Having principles until they are inconvenient to you is the same as having no principles at all.

Sydney, if you just want to "win", join the republican party, you'll fit right in. Not interested in people for whom politics is ultimately just an ego war fighting for anything.
47
Like, it's not that far from "I don't care about [white men] setting a good example", or "I don't care about [police officers] setting a good example". Once you've decided its your team, right or wrong, we're one more step to Gomorrah. Where is your line? What if Franken had instead raped and murdered all those women? What if he'd drugged them and taken photos of their limp, disrobed bodies? Is that cool, or is that too far? What if they were all 17? or 15?

Have a principle or just admit that you don't, none of this both sides of the coin bullshit.
48
I have been fixated on the 'no one is irreplaceable' thing lately, mostly from seeing people die and their work gets continued (when it was worth doing at all), but also some retirements (same, if the work was worthwhile they find other people to do it). Same is true for politicians, and there are a bazillion contenders lined up behind every incumbent for every statewide office. Franken was a uniquely gifted communicator but it turns out that's not really a qualification in a tribally/gerrymandered system like ours anyway.
49
The fretting babblers have been outclassed. This boys, is how it's done. @Syd
50
Oh my: Our Sydney feels like taking her ball and going home. My, won't she show us!

You don't like the Democratic party, Sydney? Here's what you do: You take the party over. Mother Vel-DuRay's cousin Ann-Marie (who is in her 90's now) worked her way up in the Nebraska Democratic party starting in the mid-60's, when there was no time for her to be put-out about how her feelings weren't being respected. She did what she could do, and in the process she accomplished what she set out to do. It wasn't your utopia and it wasn't hers either, because that's not how it works. It's your turn now.

Or you can just start your own Hurt Feelings Party and see how that works out for you.
51
Dan mentioned Ed Murray in his post this morning, and I think he was right to do so.

Yes, Murray's hand-picked successor easily beat the candidate the Stranger had endorsed. It's good to recall exactly what we citizens of Seattle really thought of the accusations made against Murray: we did not believe them, and we do not believe you.

Don't blame Murray for the trauma you caused us when you believed the lies told to you by felons.
52
@38: oh, were you "betrayed" by the best president of your lifetime? take your ball and go join @2.

if 2010 doesn't work, see 2006, 2014, any midterm when old assholes show up and young people can't figure out how to buy a stamp.
53
I takes way more than voting to enact real change and the established parties are not doing it.
54
I like Sportlandia's, "Having principles until they are inconvenient is the same as having no principles at all." Then again, there's the aphorism, "If you want to hang on to your principles, don't challenge them," which implies that principles are great 'n all, but sometimes in the real world, things get complicated and principles have to be put aside. Or as Rebecca Solnit put it, politics is about chess moves, not about sending Valentines. Then again, there's Garry Shandling's, "If you think nice guys finish last, you're confused about where the finish line is." Then again...
55
@54 Here's a question: What can the DNC do with Franken that they can't do with his replacement?
56
@36 COMTE: Thank you. That was exactly my point.
57
"If you know there's a sexual harasser in your party BillClinton and you don't do something about him, more sexual harassment will continue. If you're cool with that because of political calculus or whatever else HillaryClinton, you're not just as bad as the Republicans. You're worse."

Amen.

But perhaps this can be a Learning Moment for The Left.

Because herein lies the reason Donald Trump was elected.

Republicans decades back recognized Bill Clinton as a lying sexual predator who fouled the Oval Office with his disgusting presence and antics, and recognized Hillary Clinton as even worse; a hypocrite who enabled Bill and attacked his victims while claiming to be a Womans' Advocate.

When Trump wrapped up the nomination most Republicans were disgusted.
However they soon realized the choice was between disgusting Trump and lying enabling hypocritical evil Hillary and the decision to vote for Trump became easy.
Easy.

The Left crawled in bed with the Clinton Devils (a threesome! Whoopee!!) and President Trump is their LoveChild.

Perhaps The Left is to be congratulated for nominating the only candidate in the nation who could make Trump electable? It was quite a feat.

The question now is: Has The Left learned its lesson?

You tell us.
58
@57 Derwyn: You are hopelessly blind. RepubliKKKans refuse to learn any lessons from their corruption and TERRIBLY COSTLY MISTAKES, yet play dirty and enjoy rigged games at the cost of millions of people's lives and the health of our dying planet. And they live for dupes like you.
I will NEVER vote RepubliKKKan, because I know better!
59
@46:

I believe the more pertinent question is: "are YOU a man any woman would want to spend time alone with?"
60
"play dirty and enjoy rigged games "; you refer, of course, to the rigged Democratic nominating process that screwed Bernie, we presume?
"refuse to learn any lessons from their corruption and TERRIBLY COSTLY MISTAKES"; of course, refers to the nomination of Hillary, right?
61
Derwyn -- your bitter Bernie-bro fantasies simply remind us why we're not unhappy that your candidate lost.

A claim of sexual harassment was made against Bill Clinton in court and it lost. He was impeached for lying about adultery and not removed from office. You can stop pretending there was ever any finding that he behaved in the manner you're describing. (Twenty years late is better than never, but you Clinton-haters are nothing if not a tenacious bunch of fanatics.)
62
61
By your standard Trump is free and clear also.
This could be a Teachable Moment for The Left,
don't blow it.
63
@62:

Do tell us more about your fantasy world of honorable Republicans and horrid, scheming harpies like Hillary Clinton. You can start by telling us the color of the sky there.

You're not fooling anyone, you know.
64
'horrid, scheming harpies';
you are beginning to see already.....
65
What color is the sky there?
66
I accept the argument that women often aren't believed - but what about due process and the rights of the persons being accused? There are also many examples of situations where accusers lied for any number of reasons including ties of organized crime (setting people up). racism and dirty politics. I, too, would like it if we had simple answers to these very serious problems, but they just don't exist. Believing every single person is ridiculous.

So, .. no, I don't think Franken should have resigned - or John Conyers, especially. And I don't see any higher moral or analytical ground gained by establishment Democrats in participating in this "all things are equal" charade, when clearly, they are not, and the GOP is laughing themselves silly over their stupidity. Roy Moore is publicly known to have "dated" (if that's what it is) teenagers as a thirty-something - and Donald Trump is an admitted serial sex offender with court documents with sworn testimony detailing incidents of abuse and rape.

Nothing of the kind exists with respect to Conyers or Franken .. and plenty to show that some of the people involved in these stories have ulterior motives. Franken's accuser is a Trump supporter who's been filmed grabbing men in their "private areas," and Conyers' has Melanie Sloans fingerprints all over it ... she is a known corporate paid PR "hitman," along with human sleaze David Brock ... her husband is also CIA and wrote an "Ode" to assassination, i.e. basically a sanctification of the worst forms of immorality in foreign policy ... and ... to women. So .. this is who we are really talking about believing and I, for one, DON'T.
67
@66 Sloan's group has a documented history going after members of Congress who are single payer supporters and opponents of unfettered military aggression - in the past, those who were against the Iraq War. "Ethics" attorney and "ethics watchgroup" is a laugh given what they're really about. It's a smokescreen.
68
Perhaps The Left is to be congratulated for nominating the only candidate in the nation who could make Trump electable? It was quite a feat." --Derwyn

I too was impressed.

What with corps amaricana having seized OUR airwaves and Diebold or whoever 'counting' our votes, what do we do with the Democratic Party now? Now that they've -- hopefully -- hit bottom?


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