There comes a point when you just have to let things play out. Youāve asked for an investigation, let it play out and accept what comes. In the meantime, please shut up.
No matter how big the hair shirt is Franken has put on or how long heās worn it, itās never going to big enough or painful enough for people pursuing him for just the right explanation.
Anyone ASKING that Franken categorically deny heās never āplace a hand on a womanās buttā is ridiculous. First off, how in the HELL do you counter accusations like that and secondly, this is all BS and itās time to shut up.
Here is my interpretation of Frankenās response (or at least the one I want to read into it): āI want to say that I never did it because I certainly never intended to do it. But I can not know for sure how others felt during these photo opportunities, I believe it is possible that some women felt uncomfortable, felt groped even if I never intended this. Therefore, I am not going to flatly deny it.ā
I know that I am putting the best possible spin on his response and his actions because I want him to be a decent person in as many aspects as possibleā¦
Thereās a pretty big difference between a hand touching someoneās butt as they crowded close for a photo, and actually āgrabbingā their butt.
The former could happen unintentionally / carelessly, the latter implies prurient intent.
Franken was asked if he āgrabbed,ā answered that he couldnāt rule out that he had touched.
I wish he had said something like āI have never intentionally āgrabbedā a womanās butt during a photo op, but I canāt rule out that I unintentionally touched one and realize that I need to be more careful in the future.ā
The headline seems misleading, but Frankenās response to the question wasnāt great either.
I think this is EXACTLY it - if he says they were āmistaken,ā that sets up one negative headline āFranken says accusers are lying!ā If he denies doing it to anyone else and a couple more anonymous accusers show up, then heās show to be a liar. I think heās screwed anyway, but to lump this in with all the other things happening right now is definitely a case of āone of these things is not like the othersā¦ā
That was pretty much my interpretation as well. I mean, I myself have never set out to touch anybody inappropriately but that doesnāt mean that I havenāt, at some point, unintentionally done something to cause somebody some discomfort.
Itās great that weāre talking about this. More talking about these issues is better than less. It will be uncomfortable and it will be unpleasant at times, but it will be no more uncomfortable or unpleasant than millions of women all over the world feel every day when ogled, harassed, touched, threatened or abused.
However, this is more scrutiny and self-awareness and self-reflection than weāve gotten from Roy Moore and the President. Unlike Senator Franken, theyāve both been dismissive of not only the charges against them, but against the idea that women face harassment and abuse at all, from anyone.
I suspect the Senator from Minnesota will have to resign at some point, which will be fine since he can still go on being involved in politics in lots of other ways. The only question that remains, then, is when will Roy Moore and the President resign?
Can you guarantee that no person have ever felt uncomfortable when you hugged them? Can you guarantee that no person whom you unintentionally touched on the butt will ever recall it as grabbing?
I am very uncomfortable at hugging and as a result Iām very careful with where I put my hands; and I basically never hug strangers (like politicians have to) ā but I do not think I can guarantee that no one I ever hugged felt uncomfortable.
That is not to say that I know in any way that Franken is blameless. It is to say that all his statements sound to me ā at least potentially ā as honest statements of a decent human being.
The media is going into the mode which has brought them into the trust level of car-salesmen and pimps before. How is he supposed to answer such question? The woman says touched the butt and the press changes it to grab the butt. The picture shows him not touching the breasts and the guest on MSNBC says he touched her breast as if her tit was naked to the world. This jerk off Murphy says he molested the women, were the fuck does he get that from? Leaving any large public venue in the United States you are molested by this assholes definition let alone putting up luggage on an airline when we stick our crotch in one persons face and our butt in another. This is all such total unmitigated pile of steaming bullshit.
Maybe for someone else this can be a difficult question to answer one way or the other. To me thereās not much of a gray areaāyou either squeezed someoneās butt or you didnāt. If he ever thought this was a playfully naughty but essentially OK thing it might be time to just say so and get it over with.
But the Catch-22 is that there is no sufficiently big or painful hair shirt. So heāll keep trying them on, but there will always be another.
The ogled quotient can be markedly decreased by altering the clothing, Amish women have a line of clothing available for purchase that is very conservative and yet practical. They come to my area every Thursday and I would be happy to get the address of a purveyor if anyone wants.
My sister met Al and had her picture taken when he was running here in Minnesota. At Thanksgiving I jokingly asked if he grabbed her butt. She said no, but he did pull her and her friend in very close. That seems to be the way he is, maybe that was misinterpreted by some people.
That said, Iāve always thought that he may have a woman problem. Does anyone else remember the way he treated Christie Harvey when she was a regular contributor on his Air America show? He sang a weird crooner type song to her. That and some of the personal questions he asked her always struck me as very close to the line.
In this controversy, verbs matter. Grope and grab are consistently used in the tv framing of Frankenās nonconsensual contacts or near-contacts with womenās bodies. With Moore. itās ādateā, ālook forā or āmeetā. Iām not a woman, but if I was in the #MeToo movement I would want to make sure everybody uses precise language. What is described in Mooreās case are felonious assaults, battery and several species of attempted rape. In Trumpās cases where he achieved finger-penetration of the vagina, you are talking actual rape.
Another aspect of the āgropeā word is that it implies sexual incompetence on the part of the male, a very unsmooth operator. A guy who knows his way around with the ladies takes his time and can gauge her receptiveness to his advances. Rushing in is hardly an option ever unless the couple has some history. Franken, unlike Moore, seems to have lived a fairly normal sexual adulthood and really not gotten in anybody elseās face about sex. Moore, again, is anything but. Sex obsessed, twisted and repressed attitudes to sex, very confused about how lady junk works, even in recent years.
Unfortunately I agree with you on this. I am all too willing to see the gray in most areas but I can say quite unequivocally that I never grabbed someoneās butt during a photo.(Iāll also admit that this doesnāt show any admirable restraint on my part since a good proportion of my photo opps are with the grandmothers and great aunts of my family.)
In fact, he literally said he never intentionally did any such thing. I heard him myself when a news show played excerpts from the interview. Why thatās not in this write-up Iām not sure, but itās a pretty key omission.
(@professorpoopypants, @mattinpa, et al.)
āI canāt say that that hasnāt happened."
Way to go asshole.
Iām listening to his presser now. Again, compare and contrast. Roy Moore (of course accused of MUCH MUCH worse things), saying: the sluts are lying, praise Jesus. This will be the GOP playbook from now on, especially if Moore pulls this one out (no pun intended). Which I fear he will.