I might have been too ambiguous, or perhaps I don’t know everything Franken has apologized for. I thought he apologized for the photo, and welcomed an investigation into that. I wasn’t commenting on his behavior wrt the photo, just the kissing incident. If I’m mistaken about what he has apologized for, obviously that changes things.

As far as the photo is concerned, in isolation, I don’t think it is something that he should resign over or more generally that should disqualify someone from holding public office. My thoughts on that are probably colored by my personal experience, though. I’ve been in a very close role reversal of that photo, and I would never call for or expect the women who participated in it to step down from a public office. Quite frankly, it’s ****ing absurd to me.

Well, DrModern is saying Franken should go to prison just for the photo so maybe he shoulda just asked her out on a date 50 times instead.

I’m not asking him to lie, but he could perfectly well believe, based on his own memory of the kissing incident, that he did nothing out of bounds. If he is a person who cares about the importance of creating a space for women to be able to speak out about sexual harassment (I think he may be), that puts him in a ****ty spot. It is not lying to say, that’s not how I remember it, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t telling the truth based on her memories. Like, I know that’s not exactly what he said, but it seemed to me that is what he was shooting for, even if he didn’t stick the landing so to speak. I’m asking you, and any others who seem to share your same cynical view of his actions, what actions he could take that would be appropriate in your view if he found himself in this situation?

what the **** are you doing bro? jesus ****ing christ

well, he did say it was a hot take...

DrModern's posts in the other thread made me look at the photo again. Now I have an off-topic question:
Why are they wearing helmets and Kevlar vests inside an airplane on their way home?

IIRC she said she was exhausted and passed out immediately before she even had time to take the stuff off.

Ok, thanks.

Trying to put this quote chain together to show why your post is bull**** is a lot of work, but there we go.

Like, your post responds to a question "what should he do if she's lying" with "the best option is resign because women are to be believed".

That seems pretty close to:

DVaut1: Women should be believed, even if you know they are lying.

Where is the intentional obtuseness? Presumably, Al Franken knows whether she's telling the truth or not. Obviously, he's not going to "believe her" if he knows she's lying, that makes no sense?

If that's not what your post is supposed to say, then maybe write better instead of blaming others for not understanding what the **** you're trying to say.

They were flying out of a war zone. It might be standard procedure when boarding for safety reasons.

The problem is that "believe women automatically" is a ****ing stupid principle. If you espouse this principle, you're guaranteed to face an idiot or hypocrite decision at some point.

DVaut1 isn't wrong that it's funny watching a lot of people here try to square their "deeply held principle" with their doubt about these allegations, but he's wrong about what the underlying issue is. It's like watching religious people grapple with science.

Even if the allegations are 100% true, the timing is not a coincidence and she intentionally opened herself up to extra scrutiny by making the allegations at this time.

Isn't that the same excuse people are making about the Moore allegations?

Seems like it was "timed" to go along with the #metoo movement, no?

Are you talking about the allegations against Moore or the ones against Franken? Because I think you could make that argument in either case.

Franken should probably resign but seems like Dems are forever doomed either way, maybe God really does want Republicans to win because this is like the worst swing imaginable. Like we get to win on principles and sacrifice someone who actually knows what he’s doing while Republicans elect a literal pedophile to office, and this helps him because they get to “both sides” the issue. Someone’s going to find audio of Obama’s saying “big old titties” and the entire party is going to disband while Republicans start throwing Muslims into concentration camps and executing women who have abortions.

If you're default position isn't believing women when they come forward with sexual harassment and rape stories you're helping the rape culture in this country thrive.

Roy Moore had sexual relationships with 14 year olds when he was in his 30s

You can believe them and still insist on additional evidence for criminal or civil consequences to happen.

Kinda feels this way to me. Maybe it being a no-win situation makes it easier to simply Do the Right Thing? But man it rustles my jimmies to have Donald ****ing Trump of all the goddamn people tweeting gleefully about it.

Correct. She explains this in detail during that 25 minute press conference that too many people have avoided watching.

So we need body cameras for police, because they sometimes kill people for no reason, and for women, because we just can’t trust those lying whores?

In some cases you really can't. Statue of limitations and all.

Like what do you do if your standard is perfection and the other side literally has no standard at all? 0% chance that Paul Ryan resigns if it’s the exact same picture, or if he’s actually grabbing a naked woman, or if he’s bench pressing a naked teenager. The best case scenario here is Franken resigning and then everyone coming out super hard at Trump and Moore but again this changes absolutely nothing.

Yeah, fine, it's true in both cases. The allegations should be scrutinized. However, I'd like to point out:

Case A: You have like 8 accusers, accusing him of much worse stuff, AFAIK none of the accusers are friends with Hillary Clinton or whatever.
Case B: You have 1 accuser, who is friends with Hannity, and case A is already ongoing.

Ok bro.

I mean the problem is you take "default position" and stretch it to it's logical extreme, making for hilarious contortions when confronted with allegations you don't believe (the you here is a royal you, I don't know your feelings about the allegations).

Like there's a huuuuuuuge space between the edges of the

Bitches be lying<---------------------------------------------------->Always believe women

spectrum that you steadfastly refuse to occupy.

The right gets to call for Franken’s resignation while simultaneously thinking this picture is hilarious