I’m suspicious that Garrison has been Benghazied as a liberal counter balance to Roy Moore.
What difference does it make? Al Franken is going down and he’s one hundred times as important as Garrison Keillor, much as I love Garrison Keillor.
Of all of the powerful men who have been fired the charges against Keillor are the weakest. I think it is the obligation of any employer who is firing a public figure over allegations of sexual misconduct to provide sufficient information to the public to allow a his supporters to make an independent assessment. @Metoo shouldn’t be turned into cover for some organization destroying a reputation for reasons not related to sexual misconduct.
Proof??! We are Democrats, we don’t need no stinken proof.
When big waves roll in they often do damage; when they roll out they carry much of the debris from the original damage with them.
It is getting ridiculous. Men dismissed from their jobs for the slightest touching that may or may not have been provocative. Their behavior is not like Charlie Rose, Weinstein, or Lauer. This is what coming forward has devolved into. Men being destroyed by anonymous complaints of the briefest encounters. Have we gone mad?
Democrats eat their own—Republicans sit back and watch and laugh up their sleeves.
I hope this hysteria ends soon, and when it does Democrats need to take a god hard look at themselves. We got rolled last year with the email bullshit and we’re getting rolled this year by “groping” allegations. What’s next?
Gullible to the point of absolute stupidity is no way to run a country. If we can’t pull our heads out of our asses and figure out how to not get played like this, we may very well end up with anther four years of Donald Trump, and we’ll deserve it.
Related: Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz were both suspended at WNYC yesterday, days after John Hockenberry got the axe. Looks like Silicon Valley is starting to clean out the predators, too, but I’m not too optimistic about that.
Yes and the cause of fighting (genuine) sexual harassment will have been set back decades.
A full explanation is necessary. A beloved public figure had his career ended. It may be that he deserved it. But the public deserves to know what is alleged, and to be able to judge whether what is alleged is credible. By holding back, MPR is destroying its own reputation.
But we don’t know what Lopate or Schwartz are accused of doing. And if the allegations are not disclosed, that will just provide fodder for the Donald Trumps and Roy Moores of this world to deny that anything ever happens.
Those of us, regardless of our political views, who believe in fairness to BOTH SIDES in these disputes should be clear:
- Only accusations by IDENTIFIED INDIVIDUALS should be given credence
- Some sense of PROPORTIONALITY needs to be considered. What Franken did and what Weinstein did are not at the same level. Lauer raped women. Franken did not. Proportionality means that you levy a consequence which is related to the offence. Keillor is accused of patting someone on the back. For this, he gets publicly executed? How is that right? And I don’t care if he did a bunch of misdemeanors. Capital outcomes (career execution) requires a pretty serious offense. What is it in this case?
- Multiple misdemeanors do not put a person into the position of being executed.
- Processes which take place in secret have no more credibility than any secret process
- Using “ethical requirements” in which the process takes place in secret but the consequences are public is unfair and wrong. Keillor has subjected to a secret tribunal, but his head was cut off in public. This is profoundly unfair, and it is doubly, triply wrong that the perpetrators of this beheading are screening themselves behind a “personnel matters are not allowed to be stated publicly” defense.
A process of these kind of allegations and accusations is needed, and proportionate response is required.
Yeah, I think we’ve accomplished that already.
Believe the women
Treat the issue of assault with utmost seriousness
Obey the rule of law (including Constitutional due process)
None of these is intrinsically incompatible with the other.
Several other comments:
- This is more and more like the Title IX impact on university treatment of sexual assault. We have gone to a de-facto version of “preponderance of the evidence”. 1 allegation is considered, 2 allegations are serious, 6 allegations get calls for resignation. Nowhere in this anywhere is there a PROCESS to evaluate the credibility of the evidence, the level of seriousness of the events, etc. This is having a greater and greater effect ON MEN, although the time will come that a woman-on-woman accusation is made.
- People used to make snarky comments about Mike Pence. “Oh, he never appears alone with women. What a snowflake”. Pretty soon, no man will even consider being alone with a woman. For any reason in the office. This will have an impact on women, and it will not be good for their careers.
So are any of Keillor’s legions of fans at NPR standing up for him at all? Or are they all fine with him getting fired for touching someone’s back?
Keillor (reputedly) has a long history of acting like a jerk with respect to women, including repeated trading in of romantic partners for fancier models when their youth or business utility is done. MPR may have the problem of having covered for previous allegations in ways that leave the organization liable should they raise those occurrences as reasons for firing him.
You are hereby challenged to cite your sources for GK’s “long history.” If it’s that he has divorced and remarried, you’re alone in being scandalized.