A Continuum Of Grope
Jonah Goldberg argues -- and I agree with him -- that we need to make some distinctions:
Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore is credibly accused by nine women of preying on teenagers, one as young as 14. Harvey Weinstein is credibly accused by at least 50 women of a long list of offenses, some including rape. Democratic Sen. Al Franken has been accused by two women of inappropriate advances or groping.These are just the recent lowlights. A host of prominent journalists as well as Hollywood actors, writers and producers have been accused of varying degrees of misconduct.
We shouldn't stand for any of it. And yet, the severity of our intolerance should run on a spectrum. Rape should put you in jail. Making a pass at a subordinate in the workplace should have consequences. Making one at a bar? It depends. Taking harassment seriously also requires making serious distinctions.
The problem is that the logic of zero tolerance often renders every bad act as equally unacceptable.
As much as I dislike Franken, making a gross pass at an adult woman is different than molesting a 14-year-old girl. Groping a woman's backside is not the same thing as raping a woman. And yet Franken's name is routinely listed alongside Moore's and Weinstein's. Some of this leveling is simply journalistic laziness. But a lot of it is partisan demagoguery and opportunism.
Partisanship also leads to what you might call anti-leveling: People who ignore wrongdoing on "their side" even as they attack their enemies.
...But the most dangerous and corrupting force in all of this is not the weaponization of bad behavior, but the weaponization of hypocrisy. The pastor Franklin Graham even argues that the real villains are Moore's critics who "are guilty of doing much worse than" what Moore has supposedly done.
Cathy Young had the perfect tweet in response:
The mind boggles.
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) November 18, 2017
What are these Roy Moore critics guilty of that's "much worse" than sexually assaulting children?
Serial murder? cannibalism?
pot-smoking? https://t.co/7eELZIDSZ5
Here's the latest on the Joe Barton thing -- a WaPo article, "Rep. Joe Barton told woman he would report her to Capitol Police if she exposed his secret sex life," by Mike DeBonis and Elise Vieeck:
Note the words "female whistleblowers" in this tweet about it.
@jonkay
Interesting subplot to Joe Barton sh*t show:
Revenge-porn laws, created mostly to protect women, can become a tool to suppress female whistleblowers
Female whistleblowers? Apparently on some of the stuff he's done in consensual sexual relationships and the fact that he had sex a few times while still married. Wow. Should "whistles" be blown over this? He also was quoted in the piece on his views on extramarital sex:
He is not known as an outspoken culture warrior. In 1998, amid the scandal over President Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern, Barton was quoted in the Los Angeles Times saying, "I personally don't care a fig about what he does in his bedroom with his wife or any other sexual partners he may have, but I do care if he lies under oath."
So, sure, he admitted to stepping out on the spouse a few times -- as have countless other people -- but he's not even a very good hypocrite. Family values people like to fuck, too.
And surprise! Politicians say one thing and do another in their private lives. Men, women, and any genderfluid politicians there might be out there.
If electing politicians who aren't hypocrites is a true priority, we'd better start replacing all the members of Congress with dogs.
UPDATE: @JonKay, admirably, did something rarely seen on Twitter. His response to my tweet about the "whistleblower" thing.
@jonkay
Replying to @amyalkon
Thats a good point. I have been conditioned by the flow of news stories to just assume all of these folks have done something wrong. But in this case, it's just infidelity
So fart, Moore has been accused. See Herman Cain, the Duke laxers, etc.
Also Brian Banks.
And Ted Stevens.
Richard Aubrey at November 23, 2017 1:46 AM
Props to Jonah Goldberg, despite his massively conservative politics, for pointing out that Franken hardly belongs in the same category as Weinstein and Moore.
I doubt many conservatives would have called him out for simply jumping on the dogpile.
Patrick at November 23, 2017 3:19 AM
> Sen. Al Franken has been accused by two women of
> inappropriate advances or groping
But more accusers are coming forward - see for instance:
Two More Women Accuse Sen. Al Franken Of Inappropriate Touching.
One woman told HuffPost that Franken had grabbed her backside at an event honoring women.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/al-franken-two-more-women-groping_us_5a15a455e4b09650540ec295
Snoopy at November 23, 2017 3:35 AM
> The pastor Franklin Graham even argues that the
> real villains are Moore's critics
I think that what really bothers people is double standards.
Roy Moore - not in Senate, told to drop out of race, never been sued for sexual harassment
Al Franken - caught on camera groping a woman, no calls to resign
John Conyers - settled one lawsuit for sexual harassment, sued multiple times, not one call from members of Congress to resign
Snoopy at November 23, 2017 3:43 AM
Al Franken, who was caught on camera and has no defense, gets an ethics hearing with full due process. But Senate won’t give Roy Moore the same.
Snoopy at November 23, 2017 3:44 AM
I was talking to my wife about this whole mess last night. We both have hugely mixed feelings about the situation:
- On the one hand, it's good that slimeballs are being called out, and are suffering consequences for their actions.
- On the other hand, it's absolutely idiotic that the victims are speaking out now, instead of years ago when the abuse actually happened. There is now essentially no way to prove the allegations, which means...
- ...that allegations are simply being believed, with no proof, no due process, nothing. It is now even easier for any woman to ruin the life of any man she dislikes, just by making an unsubstantiated claim of abuse.
It was already the case that no sensible man will, at work, ever be alone with a woman in a room. If you need to talk with a female colleague, you do it in some public place like the cafeteria, or an open-plan office. Men will now have to be even more cautious.
This puts women at a *huge* disadvantage in the business world. It's much easier for men to work with other men, and we will do so. Women will be cut out of the process, because men don't dare trust them.
a_random_guy at November 23, 2017 4:38 AM
Al Franken is s sitting senator. Roy Moore is a candidate for the Senate. Candidates, who are not yet members of that body, do not usually get ethics committee hearings.
The reality is Franken probably broke no actual rules of the Senate. Unlike Packwood, it is not Franken's staff coming forward with complaints, but his constituents. And there is a remedy for mistreatment of constituents. They'll get a chance to implement that remedy in 2020, if they so desire.
Conan the Grammarian at November 23, 2017 4:57 AM
The New York Times published at least one editorial calling on Franken to resign. And that was when there were only two complaints. The number of accusations has since doubled.
At least two progressive groups have called upon Franken to resign. Again, those calls came after only two women had accused him.
The number of accusations against Franken has quadrupled since the "lying, hypocritical tramp" lodged the first complaint against the serial groper "so reserved in his public conduct that you might suspect he was asexual."
As for Conyers, at this time, there is at least one call from a Democrat for him to resign. The Detroit Free Press has also called upon him to resign.
________________________________________
It has since come to light that Congress has paid out over $15 million to settle harassment claims for the House of Representatives. No word on how much has been paid to settle Senate claims.
These funds were disbursed by the Office of Compliance which was created by 1995's Congressional Accountability Act (CAA).
According to The Hill:
"Ironically, the CAA was a serious attempt to bring Congress under many labor laws from which it had previously exempted itself. In fact, under the CAA, Congress applied 12 different labor laws to itself for the first time, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Federal Service Labor Management Relations Statute, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, among others."
"The CAA sought to make changes in how Congress dealt with charges of sexual harassment against its members and staff, too. Prior to enactment of the law, a victim of sexual harassment by a member of Congress had virtually no legal recourse at all."
The CAA gave victims recourse in an office to which to lodge complaints and that would mediate accusations. That office, the Office of Compliance, quickly became little more than a clearing house for paying off accusers with taxpayer money.
________________________________________
On a personal note: as much as I dislike Franken, his bullying, and his politics, I agree that 4 credible accusations of serial groping do not put him in the same category as an accused rapist and predator like Weinstein. The forced kiss, if proven, might move him to a new and sleazier category, but Weinsteinian he is not. If he should lose his office, that is up to the people of Minnesota to decide.
Conan the Grammarian at November 23, 2017 5:45 AM
Arguably it is the same for Moore. He has been accused but not convicted of anything. So the citizens have a chance to implement that same remedy sooner. And if someone wants to put Moore in a court room and convict him so be it. But that won't happen before the election. It isn't like it's the first time a crook has been elected. "Vote For the Crook. It's Important." came out of Louisiana if I recall correctly.
Ben at November 23, 2017 5:50 AM
a_random_guy, let's not forget that it won't be too long before the MAJORITY of women, at least, won't have the excuse of waiting, since by 1990 or so, the average woman *probably* wasn't automatically treated like a criminal when she accused someone more popular or socially powerful than she. Only those women raised in truly misogynist or ultra-conservative communities - or those born before 1970 at the latest - will have the excuse to be scared and silent for years. (Keep in mind that the unofficial rule used to be, in rape cases, that if a woman didn't have bruises - maybe because he threatened her with a deadly weapon - she was likely out of luck, even if she didn't have a reputation for lying. How would you like that if it were your daughter?)
lenona at November 23, 2017 6:04 AM
Roy Moore asserts his innocence of the three egregious charges and has provided specific facts and witness to impeach Nelson's, Corgman's, and the mall ban allegations. There is a presumption in Jonah Goldberg's, Cathy Young's, and many commenters that, indeed, there is no defense against a charge. You buy into the idea that men cannot be innocent, when women lie all the time. Further, you ignore entirely the female vice of wanting to be the center of attention and wanting to be known, socially, for having been pursued by a powerful man.
Jonah Goldberg lives in the leftist Kafkaesque world where to admit guilt is commendable and to declare your innocence is proof of guilt. We've seen:
Jackie Coakley from Rolling Stone/UVA
Mangum at Duke
The current thing unraveling about the rape allegation against Nelly
Nicola Osborne
Rhiannon Brooker
Lena Dunham
Mattress Girl
And the list goes on; Janet Bloomfield has even more examples. Those are only the high-profile instances of women creating rape and sexual assault allegations to get their fifteen minutes of fame (or a seat at the SOTU and a degree from Columbia).
To accept Jonah Goldberg's position is to adopt wholesale his blindness from his hatred of Donald Trump, which he has focused on Roy Moore, and to say that we must adopt the entire list of leftist Shibboleths, including denying what the Internet has now documented as a track record of this sort of behavior, especially being sprung near an election.
El Verde Loco at November 23, 2017 6:49 AM
And so much for "equality". Throw it in the trash, because women are clearly totally unable to confront an aggressor of any kind.
That's why due process is avoided.
More.
Radwaste at November 23, 2017 7:10 AM
> Franken hardly belongs in the
> same category as Weinstein
> and Moore.
If the category is people whose behavior we find intolerable in public servants, the category may well be sufficiently capacious for all.
Why are people always trying to imagine their most personal and darling judgments are what politics is about?
Crid at November 23, 2017 7:29 AM
To accept Jonah Goldberg's position is to adopt wholesale his blindness from his hatred of Donald Trump, which he has focused on Roy Moore, and to say that we must adopt the entire list of leftist Shibboleths, including denying what the Internet has now documented as a track record of this sort of behavior, especially being sprung near an election.
El Verde Loco at November 23, 2017 6:49 AM
True. Not only is all sexual harassment not equally repugnant on the X axis, all allegations are not equally credible on the Y axis.
The intersection of both credibility and level of offense bolsters any case substantially. Weinstein, clearly a criminal. Franken clearly a cad.
Roy Moore, may be both but you are going to have a really tough time proving it with a 40 year old accusation and nothing else for the last 35 years.
A 40 year old allegation simply isn't credible on its own without any other evidence or some continuing pattern of behavior. And even if it was, there are many valid and entirely political reasons why Alabama's voters may not want to hand the election to Moore's opponent,
I really hope the GOPe loses this battle. They have been siding with the other side of the aisle against their own constituents for some time now.
Isab at November 23, 2017 8:18 AM
Just infidelity?
When you get married, you take the other person's happiness into your own hands. You may not be responsible for that happiness in its entirety, but you've accepted a big role to play in it going forward.
Someone has agreed to share his/her life with you, exclusively. To betray that trust is one of the most personal betrayals you can commit.
"Just infidelity" speaks a great deal about person's character, both the person committing it and person dismissing it.
In a 2012 Atlantic article on guns, Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses temptation and infidelity in the context of social compacts and guard rails, "I’ve been with my spouse for almost 15 years. In those years, I’ve never been with anyone but the mother of my son. But that’s not because I am an especially good and true person. In fact, I am wholly in possession of an unimaginably filthy and mongrel mind. But I am also a dude who believes in guard-rails, as a buddy of mine once put it. I don’t believe in getting 'in the moment' and then exercising will-power. I believe in avoiding 'the moment.' I believe in being absolutely clear with myself about why I am having a second drink, and why I am not; why I am going to a party, and why I am not. I believe that the battle is lost at Happy Hour, not at the hotel. I am not a 'good man.' But I am prepared to be an honorable one."
Conan the Grammarian at November 23, 2017 9:00 AM
If we're going to be grading goping, the feminists' one-in-five mantra wrt campuses is going to have to be rethought. The infamous Koss study where the slightest boundary violation in dating is "rape" comes to mind.
Richard Aubrey at November 23, 2017 9:40 AM
Regarding Moore. All but on of the "children" were over 16 which was apparently the age of consent at the time, and not one of the over 16 'accusers' have claimed he forced them or did anything criminal
So I could care less about them. It sucks that four decades later they feel taken advantage of, so do many people with credit card debt because their schools never taught them math and they didnt read the contracts they signed. Doesnt mean they were mugged
As for the 14 year old, given not a single article condemning Moore has condemned the girls mother is telling. The other telling thing is these assaults took place 1977-1978, yet every news article that references age of consent laws in Alabama mention the law from 1979 onward - one guess as to why that is
And for those commentators of Amys from Canada who are sickened by Moore's actions age of consent in Canada was 14 as little as 10 years ago
lujlp at November 23, 2017 2:11 PM
Age of consent
Canada 14 until 2008
Georgia 14 until 1995
Hawaii 14 until 2001
Even today the age of consent for more than half the US is 16 years old only 11 states have age of consent at 18, the rest are under 18
So given today at the age of nearly 75 Roy Moore could legally have sex with a 16 year old in 39 states I could care less he did so legally 40 years ago
lujlp at November 23, 2017 2:29 PM
"Just infidelity" speaks a great deal about person's character, both the person committing it and person dismissing it.
Says a lot about the people who think infidelity is the same thing as rape
lujlp at November 23, 2017 2:48 PM
According to this article, the age of consent in Alabama in 1920 was 16 and in 2007 was 16. I can't find on Google any information that it changed in the intervening 87 years.
That would seem to indicate that Roy Moore, if he knew the girl to be 14, was knowingly breaking the law that, as an ADA, he was sworn to uphold.
It also indicates that his hitting on 16-year-olds, while creepy was legal, and not considered child molestation in the state of Alabama (and many others as the chart in the article shows).
Conversely, one wonders how accurate the 40+ year-old memory of a then-14-year-old is. Certainly a trauma like the one being described would be memorable, but with an incident that long ago the brain tends to fill in any memory gaps.
Again, not a Roy Moore fan, but also not a fan of politically-motivated evidence-free accusations of 40-year-old crimes.
Conan the Grammarian at November 23, 2017 4:13 PM
Speaking of the Continuum of Grope:
Mum demands school BANS Sleeping Beauty because she 'didn't consent to being kissed'
mpetrie98 at November 23, 2017 9:11 PM
Cathy Young: What are these Roy Moore critics guilty of that's [according to Franklin Graham] "much worse" than sexually assaulting children?
Not accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
See, if you sexually assault children, but then accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you -- ka-ching! -- get to go to heaven. But if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior then -- even if you've spent your entire life helping children instead of sexually assaulting them -- you don't get into heaven (as this website points out: We can’t earn our way to heaven by being good...)
JD at November 24, 2017 9:14 AM
I gag when I see Franken, but in the photo of him groping, it is air groping, not touching. Of course I don't know what he did before or after, but the photo is only proof that he has a juvenile mind--but remember he is a comedian.
Some of the #metoo I have seen refer to "unwanted sexual attention". Lordy lordy, are those men looking at you with lust in their eyes? Did they make a suggestive joke and ask you out? Call the cops!!!
cc at November 24, 2017 3:42 PM
Franken is not a comedian. He is an asshole. But when he is an asshole to 'the right victims', his fellow tribesmen laugh at those 'wrong people' being abused by THEIR asshole. Keen.
He hit on a woman who said no and he treated her like crap after that, up to and including that picture he put into the 'after USO' photo album as a final FU.
Are these crimes? No. He is an asshole (who won because of a trunk full of 'found' votes and felons)
HOWEVER, if Franken lectured 'the wrong people' and tried to discredit and 'other' them using the same standard HE is being hit on for...then fuck him. He is reaping what he sowed.
FIDO at November 24, 2017 8:01 PM
cc
Tell you what: go up to a buxom woman in your supermarket, put your hands 2 inches in front of her breasts and make some 'honk honk' motions.
See how much ice that cuts you in the 'not really touching her'.
Except that Franken doesn't even have the courage to do that to her face. He safely did that in such a way that he would be miles away when he saw his douchebaggery.
That doesn't make him a criminal, but it does make him a low person.
FIDO at November 24, 2017 8:04 PM
Why is it Bill (Lolita Express) Clinton is never mentioned when it comes to sexual harassment and inappropriate actions?
The fact that he very likely performed Weinstein levels of sexual abuse should make him front page news. But exactly how many reporters are looking into HIS poor conduct? We instead get the 'yeah, he probably did something bad but we don't want to touch that third rail and actually have to OWN it.'
There needs to be a statue of limitations on this. If you can't be bothered to bring an accusation within the statute of limitations of the crime, then STFU. You had your window to actually DO something and you didn't. That is on you.
Because a person can do a lot of changing in 7 years.
FIDO at November 24, 2017 8:13 PM
"Jonah Goldberg lives in the leftist Kafkaesque world ...."
-- El Verde Loco at November 23, 2017 6:49 AM
Jonah Goldberg of The National Review is...a leftist? WTF. I gotta wonder what some of you think "conservatism" is.
Anyway.
Franken is an asshole and a creep. No argument there.
But holy fuck, some of you are sticking up for Moore? Lemme guess, you think the several Trump-supporting Republican women who accused Moore and the 30-odd people who backed them up and the former colleagues who recount him being well-known for going after high-school girls and the law-enforcement people who state he was banned from the mall are all part of a "leftist" plot down in redder than red Alabama. Just like Jonah and all those people who are meanie mcmeanies to Trump. But Hillary! But Franken!
I can't even even with you people. I just can't. Jesus Christ on a stick.
Gail at November 26, 2017 1:33 PM
Leftists have not given a single flying fuck about what either Clinton has done for 40 years. Or Ted Kennedy, that philandering murderer.
Fine, if that’s how the game is to be played, I am in.
I do not give a fuck about Trump or Moore or any of them.
I’m just happy to have made about $400k in the market in the last year and all the lovely conservative federal judges being appointed/confirmed while no one notices. And the 3-4% GDP growth (with more to come) vs. Obama's shitty 1.5%.
We may just save this country yet.
Chester White at November 26, 2017 10:39 PM
Jonah Goldberg of The National Review is...a leftist? WTF. I gotta wonder what some of you think "conservatism" is.
_____________________________________
Gail, please post more often!
lenona at November 27, 2017 7:47 AM
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