Geeze! If she was a Republican, there wouldn’t be any concerns at all about seeking reelection.
I presume she received intense pressure from the Junior Senator from New York and the Queens Congressman who leads the Democratic Caucus. I didnt see anything about it on Television or read any of their statements about this case anywhere. But extrapolating on their very vocal role in forcing Al Franken to step down that the unspecified pressure mentioned in this article HAS to be them.
Sure hope we keep the seat.
CT-5 was one district the GOP was targeting. Esty would have had a real fight on her hands and with this IMO she’d lose. Bowing out now allows a good Dem. candidate to step in. Possibly running on the GOP ticket is William Petit (google about gruesome murders of his wife and daughters). CT abolished the death penalty thereby allowing the convicted murderers of his family to avoid death but serve life in prison. He’s been a vocal opponent of that change in CT law and will be a force should he run for Esty’s seat. A fresh Dem face will help a great deal.
I have a small problem with this situation. Esty should be held accountable for shielding this guy. I also feel that Dems should have been more vocal about that pig from Texas- Fehrienthold. He WAS the harrasser and used tax dollars to pay off the victim.
Gaudammit, nobody “forced” Franken to step down. He himself acknowledged the necessity, especially in the current climate, and did his Democratic duty. His “joke photo” was a joke about groping an unconscious woman, and no, I can no longer “take a joke” about stuff like that. You people out there wanting him to get away with that “joke” undermine our commitment to eliminating harassment and inappropriate touching. Since it was also followed by a half dozen more contemporary and credible accusations of actual groping, it just wasn’t going to fly.
It’s a shame Our Hero had feet of clay, but he did. I’m sick and tired of people wanting to make excuses for the kind of “humor” and behavior that betrays women’s fundamental interests. Franken himself understood that. He could have hung on to smear his mistakes all over our party and given all kinds of “both sides” ammunition to our enemies, but he was better than that. My thanks to him.
It’s OK, she’s got that nifty site where she sells people’s knitted stuff, should be all right if she turns her full attention to it.
I’m just not so sure about his feet of clay - I mean, more so than the rest of us. I don’t like smutty humor myself, and experience gender discrimination often in this business, but I think Franklin doesn’t do the real below the belt stuff and then tell people they can’t take a joke - he got railroaded. That being said, he took one for the team, which is in line with all is other public conduct.
Because CT is way over there and I’m way over here on the West Coast I haven’t paid any attention to this race under than what TPM has run. Unfortunately, however I do know about Mr. Petit and the gruesome murders. There was a documentary on HBO, not for the faint of heart. It is good to know he’s been able to rebuild his life with a new family. He could get the sympathy vote but also deserve to represent his district.
I do believe there’s a huge gender divide in how jokes are perceived, women being very sensitive to them with antennas of a sort being attuned to them, and men saying almost invariably, “I was just joking.” Can’t you take a joke?" and so on. We’ve been listening to those “jokes” forever and want to be rid of them and those who tell them.
I’m glad you found his humor acceptable or mild enough to not offend your sensibilities. I didn’t.
Humor tells us what’s important and what isn’t. Humor can be a form of aggression, or an expression of contempt, a propaganda tool, a teaching moment…to my mind, the forms of humor we accept or consider non-serious do a lot of social signaling. Thinking that pretending to grope an unconscious woman is just a little lighthearted “boys will be boys” joke shouldn’t be acceptable any more.
I’m heartily sick of “Aw, c’mon, it’s all in fun (you humorless bitch)” excuses for ugly expressions of disrespect. None of it is “harmless.”
No. Franken was railroaded because some weak ass Dems decided they had to “rise above.” What a joke. Actually, I’m glad Esty got some payback because now she knows that the issue of harassment is complicated sometimes, not cut and dry.
And there are STILL “both sides” ammunition the Rethugs throw out so no, Franken taking one for the team was ridiculous and didn’t agin us anything in the long run.
You bet lgb - and I don’t think “we’re too sensitive”. I don’t appreciate that kind of humor. Racist " humor" - that was pretty much agreed upon before 2016 as being beyond the pale - and the perception of valid sexism still has to catch up to that. But I really don’t believe this malarky around Frankin, I just don’t.
we respectfully disagree on this instance Mr. Grey.
She wasn’t actually unconscious, though. She was in on the joke, which wasn’t about grabbing her boobs. She led the charge to smear Shirley Sherrod, so she knew how to do it. Roger Stone was in on it, too, and knew it was going to come out before it did. Franken was accompanied 24/7 by an army guy to make sure. Nothing untoward happened. This was a political hit job, and it would have looked a lot different if he’d been allowed to wait for a hearing, hear from the army escort and the cameraman, and get Tweeden’s version of the story on record. Once they started talking about getting her on record, she was all « never mind ».
I think that is Ms Grey, and those of us commenting on the Franken matter are all women, if I read your names correctly. I, too, think Franken was railroaded, and the junior senator from NY fell quite a few points in my esteem when she did that. His situation was hugely different than the other offenders being outed at that time.
Esty got “payback”? Interesting. What for?
She resigned for essentially the same reason Franken did: to signal that the Democrats take sexual harassment seriously, and that any Dem politician who either indulges in or even tries to EXCUSE that behavior weakens that position.
She understood what he did: trying to squirm away from the implications of this kind of behavior is politically just as bad as doing it yourself.
Especially in the long run.
A woman’s level of sensitivity might be in proportion to how much “joking” and “teasing” she’s been dealing with in the course of her life. So, the older one gets the more frustrated one gets to know it’s not behind us. Granted what Franken did is mild in comparison to other guys have been found doing and not just in the entertainment industry, but I continue to believe the Democratic party has to act without any consideration of how Rs act in shielding (until recently) their sexual assaulters. With the exception of the Assaulter In Chief for whom they’ve made a self-serving exception.
I admired Franken as much as anyone, enjoyed his radio program, but it’s done. We can scream about if it we were to lose his seat this year, then we’ll know for sure we did the wrong thing and may pull our punches in the future. .
IT DOESNT MATTER WHETHER SHE “WASN’T REALLY” UNCONSCIOUS.
OR WHETHER HE “REALLY TOUCHED HER.”
It’s the contempt expressed in the “joke” itself, making light of the whole idea of grabbing a woman’s boobs without her consent.
I don’t go in for the whole hog conspiracy theory on whether she deliberately set this up, or even was completely “in on it” because that really doesn’t matter either.
The picture itself, which he clearly wanted to be taken, demonstrates a cavalier attitude to the concept of groping without consent. He thought it was a hilarious thing to mime doing, in a “naughty boy” way. Combined with multiple credible contemporary accusations that he was still finding a little butt-groping amusing (to himself, anyway) years later, it’s just too much, especially for a Democrat in the current political context.
And PS, it wasn’t just the junior senator from New York who spoke to this matter, although I think she beat the others by a couple hours, many other congressional women came to the same conclusion.