Doubts

By Miss Kubelik

We cats finally read Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece on Al Franken last night. After all the vitriol we saw about it on the Twitter machine, we expected a hit job, a real Al-Franken-was-screwed screed, one that pulled no punches and that trashed one of our Democratic Senators, Kirsten Gillibrand, to hell and back.

Well, no, actually.

Mayer's article — it was very long, as is The New Yorker's wont — was thoughtful and balanced. You came away with suspicions about Franken's main accuser, a right winger named Leeann Tweeden, and her Hannityesque cheerleaders, but also with uncertainty about Franken himself. You could see how he misbehaved, or perhaps didn't misbehave but was misinterpreted. You understood how Democratic women Senators believed — rightly — that they needed to be consistent about accusations leveled against a member of their caucus in the fresh heat of #MeToo. You learned how the Senate's ethics process moves slowly — too slowly to keep up with the drumbeat of the news cycle. You realized that maybe our other Democratic Senator, Chuck Schumer, isn't such a great Minority Leader.

But you also were reminded that Franken had multiple accusers, one of whom was a Senate staffer — and then there was that picture. Always that picture. Yep, Al was toast.

We're sorry about Al Franken. We gave him money and thought he was great. We loved his books. We loved the fact that the nutcases hated him. We are grateful that it was his adroit questioning (he's not a lawyer) that helped lead Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from Benedict Donald's Russiagate scandal and appoint Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. But we have doubts about him. And we don't understand why Al Franken's behavior is Kirsten Gillibrand's fault.

So before anyone is tempted to rage on Twitter about how Franken was railroaded and Kirsten is a witch and Leeann Tweeden was out to get him (she was) and how Jane Mayer is awful (she isn't), they should read the article and take some time to think. Mayer's reporting leaves us with valid questions.

What do we do when men we admire behave badly? If women have always been unjustly accused of inspiring rape by dressing provocatively or getting drunk, is it fair to make someone like Al Franken explain his effusive, physical personality over and over? (Joe Biden might have something to say about misinterpreted displays of affection.) Can we ever understand what is in our hearts and minds when we act the ways we do, and how our actions are perceived by others?

We're posting about this here rather than try to tweet about it. First, because Twitter is limited, and second, because we don't want to be deluged with hostile replies from pro-Franken bullies. That's pointless infighting. We refuse to engage in it, and it makes us HISS.