Believe Any Accusation Made Against Chris Cillizza, He Says It's The Thing To Do From "America's Most Trusted Source for 'News'"

The ever more clearly orchestrated accusations of minor naughtiness against Al Franken, to date:

- that during a rehearsal for a comedy skit that Leeann Tweeden didn't like how the kiss went,

-  a naughty "boys on the bus" stunt photo of him making sleazy gestures against the kevlar vest she was wearing while asleep, 

- one woman says he touched her buttocks as her husband was taking a picture of them together at the Minnesota state fair, 

has turned into a media  frenzy which is not without its own political dimensions, especially among those "both sides" venues, such as CNN and NPR, which always end up with Democrats being held to entirely higher standards than they will ever hold Republicans too.  

CNN's Chris Cillizza put up a piece in which he turns Al Franken's decision to not go on cabloid TV over the accusations into a kind of simulation of evidence of guilt.  I, though, think that what Cillizza did in the piece is a good example of how CNN, as a pioneer of the destructive 24-7 need to fill up air time of cabloid news,  led the way for the current practice of turning reasonable behavior by innocent people into "evidence" of their guilt and of whipping up charges against someone who is, at worst, guilty of a very low level of offense into a "scandal", something which has been done almost exclusively against Democrats and liberals.  I'll go over how he does that.

In the wake of radio host Leeann Tweeden's accusation that Franken kissed her without her consent and fondled her breasts while she was asleep during a 2006 USO Tour they both were featured on, Franken told reporters this: "I certainly don't remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn't. I shouldn't have done it."

That "apology" was met with universal disdain -- even in Democratic circles -- and so Franken quickly put out another, much longer statement. "I respect women," Franken said in it. "I don't respect men who don't. And the fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed."

First, I don't remember any "universal disdain" I remember an orchestrated, hardly universal campaign to feign disdain for it perhaps with some of that being somewhat sincere.   If someone is not guilty of what they're accused of or the accusation is of a very minor order of boorish behavior, the level of apology that Al Franken issued is entirely appropriate and sufficient.  It might not help the staff of CNN fill up empty headed air time, of the kind CNN and FOX and most of the cabloid networks deal in, but no one, even a politician, is required to conduct their personal conduct so as to make the job of cabloid executives and producers easy.  

The subsequent revelations of, most importantly, the obvious Republican ratfucker involvement of ratfuckers like Roger Stone and, later Mike Cernovich in the operations against Franken and other Democrats being accused.  That,  as well as the subsequent far sleazier behavior of Leeann Tweeden*  during the same and other USO tours and her subsequent, hardly disgusted, behavior towards Al Franken and her media general profile all point to this being a whipped up charge for ulterior motives.  The woman who complained that Al Franken touched her buttocks as the woman's husband was not only present but taking a picture that could document the encounter clearly wanted to get on CNN and other such media.  I don't know if her politics or her past political activity is known but that is certainly relevant to judging the nature of an incident which seems to have not been noticed by her husband who was watching it and recording it for posterity.  

Cillizza's method of ramping this kind of thing up into evidence of guilt is also seen in this part of his piece:

Franken issued another statement to CNN to deal with this latest accusation. "I take thousands of photos at the state fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don't remember taking this picture," Franken told CNN. "I feel badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected."

No one has seen hide nor hair of Franken since last Thursday when the news about Tweeden broke. Aside from those handful of statements, he's said nothing else about the allegations against him. And he's taken no questions.

What Franken is doing here is obvious. He is letting the statement he released last week in the wake of the first allegations stand. He's not adding to it, re-opening it or relitigating it.

Which may be inconvenient for Republican scandal mongers and their witting or witless allies in the cabloid media, BUT IT IS ENTIRELY REASONABLE BEHAVIOR FOR AN INNOCENT PERSON OR ONE WHO HAS BEEN ACCUSED FALSELY OR IS THE FOCUS OF A MISUNDERSTANDING. 

Cillizza continues in a way which exposes the media scandal mongers' methods even more sharply. 

And, he's hoping that with Congress out of session this week for Thanksgiving recess -- and the country less focused on work than their turkey day plans -- that this whole thing blows over (or loses some of its heat) before next week. Franken's move to self-refer his conduct to the Senate Ethics Committee is another way of taking some of the immediacy from all of this. The ethics committee is not exactly the world's swiftest when it comes to meting out justice.

Which is a probably a smart political strategy. But, it's beyond hypocritical for Franken, who has been an outspoken critic of other men accused of sexually inappropriate behavior, to simply bunker in and hope the storm passes. And Democrats shouldn't stand for it.

Oh, for crying out loud.  From what I've read Al Franken has the distinction of being the first Senator to publicly call for himself to be made the focus of the Senate Ethics Committee, to ascribe the cynical motives that Cillizza does to that, by a media figure is disgusting.   It is to try to turn an unprecedented, voluntary call to subject oneself to an investigation into some kind of proof of guilt.  

The whining accusation that Franken volunteering to go through what will, no doubt, be an unpleasant ordeal of questioning and certainly leaking by Republicans and having cabloid shitheads like Cillizza and others into a strategy where there would be no strategic advantage gained EXCEPT BY SOMEONE WHO IS INNOCENT OF THE ACCUSATIONS.  

The now many incidents of persecution of Democrats and just private citizens by CNN, FOX and the media that has followed their lead into the trash journalism standards of the tabloids reveal a lot about the practices that have lead American journalism into the sewer and, concurrently and consciously promoted the strategies of the worst of Republican-fascism.  I mentioned the early case of Richard Jewell whose life was destroyed by the Louis Freeh era FBI and its allies in the media, from once considered high end to the low end of tabloid-cabloid libel and slander.   

The assertion by Cillizza that there is something untoward about Al Franken requesting to be investigated by the Senate Ethics process in which the conclusions will be based on evidence in the public record is about as disgusting an idea  as has come out of the 24-7 cabloid world.  Instead he is calling for this to be decided by the practices of cabloid TV, Twitter and Facebook which are entirely open to the use of ratfuckers such as the cabloids and Buzzfeed are apparently turning to for content. 

You'd better be careful for what you ask for because, with this, Cillizza and CNN should be considered fair game and I don't mean for stories of sex scandal of even the low end variety that has set off the absurd insistence by even some otherwise rational people that Al Franken should resign because if that's how you want to conduct things all friggin' hell has been set loose. 

I am a total and complete believer in processes that are set up to gather and test evidence and, in the many cases that is possible, to come to something like an ideally objective conclusion about where that tested evidence leads.   I was in favor of it for people I don't like and even dislike such as Michael Shermer and Bill Cosby and even for politicians and journalists I despise.  Though I am also in favor of politicians and journalists who want to be able to violate the rights of other people in the way the media does when it's even the flimsiest or most obviously cooked up accusation against Democrats to be dealt with by their own practices.   CNN and the rest of the cabloid cancer on journalism will have to be held to the same standards they practice in which any false accusation that is made for even the most obvious of political purposes are held to be true, sometimes even in the face of a total lack of evidence.  From now on, any lie that is spread about Chris Cillizza should be handled under Cillizza's rules, in which he is presumed to be guilty maybe even if proven innocent.  I'm an even bigger fan of the rules applying to those who make them.  

*  When the behavior of someone like Leeann Tweeden, involving exactly the kind of behavior she is complaining about proves that she engaged in the same kind of thing, kissing strangers, groping them, making sleazy moves for public display, their behavior becomes entirely and fairly relevant to the issue.  The immediate and rote claim that such behavior is always to be held irrelevant is not sustainable.   As I said, the sexy pictures of her, alone, at the instruction of photographers and others is not relevant to the accusations, her own photographed and filmed behavior during USO tours and elsewhere as well as her current media associations and appearances are entirely relevant to judging the claims she made.   The groping and dirty dog photos of her on stage are as relevant as the photograph of Franken reaching for the kevlar vest she had on.   Those wanting to use that against Franken don't get to claim that her behavior is irrelevant to the accusations she made.