Franken's behavior is no more excusable or defensible than what Roy Moore has been accused of or what Trump has been accused of.
What's different here is that Franken almost immediately issued a statement acknowledging what happened and apologizing for it. He himself called for a Senate ethics investigation and said he would cooperate with it. That's the way it should be done - own the problem and work to resolve it.
Should he step down as Senator? That depends on what the Senate finds and what his constituents want, but based on his apology I suspect that if his constituents object to him remaining in the Senate, he will not hesitate to step down. Leeann Tweeden, the woman who brought the charges, said today in an interview on CNN that Franken's apology was good enough for her and she wasn't looking for anything more.
Roy Moore now has nine women accusing him; Trump has 19. Both have defended themselves simply by calling their accusers liars while offering no proof in their defense. If Al Franken is forced to resign his seat over a single incident, it's going to open the floodgates in both parties, with more allegations being made against other members of Congress. In that case, there's no way Moore can be seated if he manages to win the election, and the light will shine on Trump and his indiscretions again. Maybe that's a good thing.
PS - The one thing that is curious about this whole Franken story is that last night, a Twitter account linked to Roger Stone tweeted that it was about to be Franken's "turn in the bucket" and there would be more stories of groping. The story itself didn't drop until this morning, hours later, which begs the question: how and why did Roger Stone know about it ahead of time? |
