Democrats Who Accept The Demand Of Absolute Purity Might As Well Be Working For Roger Stone and James O'Keefe

We will soon know if Democrats who hounded Al Franken out of his Senate seat and deprived the party and the country of one of our most effective Senators will be known to have made about as stupid a political blunder as ever has been made.  Or not.  If Alabamans elect Roy Moore one of the things I expect is that Republicans will shut down any kind of investigation into the pedophile harassment and likely worse he's not only accused of by multiple women who were teenagers when the adult Moore pursued them, it was known enough at the time to have gotten him banned from trolling a shopping mall.  Republicans will have succeeded beyond their hopes in removing an effective Senator and to have reinforced a double standard in which they can install a pedophile in the Senate in a state which will have proven to be able to elect one.  There is a chance Alabamans will prove to be better than they hope they are.

I have heard the term "zero tolerance" used by different people to describe the approach that equates what Al Franken was accused of with what Trump bragged about and Roy Moore is more credibly accused of  And what Franken has been held to be assumed to be guilty of, even when the photographic evidence of the events in the description and the scenarios described definitely do not support the claims.   That is even as FOX or as I've heard it more accurately called "Trump News" falsely attracts the credibility of Moore's accusers.  Clearly, as Mitch McConnell and other Republican Senators and politicians and their hired pundit liars have spun on Roy Moore, their tolerance is more like 90%, if not 99 44/100th percent for pedophiles and rapists, when they'll get them a certain Senate vote.

The standard that those who threw Franken under the bus demand of Democrats, in practical and political terms, will be adopted as the Democratic standard but Republicans will be allowed to get away with whatever Roy Moore actually did do - remembering that when he was accused of molesting teenage girls, he was banned from a mall for bothering girls.

There is are more general problems that this raises, the first is that Republican ratfuckers will exploit the double standard that is what is going to come out of this, the difference between what Republicans will be allowed to get away with, scott free, and the sky's the limit for what false, inflated, cooked up and entirely anonymous accusations will be made against Democrats.

The original accusation against Franken, Leanne Tweedens was, obviously, a part of a Republican ratfucking op, Roger Stone, one of Nixon's original ratfuckers knew about it before it became public, he tweeted about it.  She has a history of involvement with Trump News figures and the accusations she made are impossible to verify in one case - who can tell what happened in the mouths of people involved in a stage kiss during a rehearsal -  and, in the naughty joke photo it is clear then comedian Franken didn't touch the kevlar vest his hands were reaching for.   The other incidents with photographic evidence don't support the claims as don't the facts that there were witnesses present taking the pictures,  IN ONE CASE THE WOMAN'S HUSBAND.  None of which was reported during his original run for office nor during the more than nine years he has been in office.  That is a definite difference between Franken and Moore, Moore was known to be bothering girls in a mall during the time he's accused of molesting girls.  Clearly, during his for-show sanctimonious public career as an elected Alabama Supreme Court member and his phony use of "the 10 commandments"  that part of his record was successfully covered up by Republicans in Alabama.  Just as, now, FOX and the Republican establishment are trying to sweep it away so he can become a Senator with it before the public.

That is what the "zero tolerance" is and what it will revert to, entirely, when this is over. A "zero tolerance" that insists the accusations against Al Franken carry a penalty that Roy Moore will escape is politically untenable because it is not only unrealistic, it is also unjust.  It also goes entirely against the political records of the two politicians, Al Franken has been a champion of women's' rights, Roy Moore has been an opponent of all kinds of equality and for the privilege of rich white people, especially rich white men.   For Democratic politicians, such as those Senators who called for Al Franken to resign, to refuse to acknowledge not only the difference in political records - not to mention Al Franken's effectiveness which few of his Democratic opponents can claim - but the quality of the accusations and the identity of some if not most of those named accusers whose records can be checked, their call for his resignation wasn't high-minded, it was unjust and it was extremely stupid and irresponsible.

The acceptance of anonymous accusations against Al Franken is especially troubling because allowing and airing anonymous accusations is to hand the fate of any Democratic politician over to the level of verification practiced on unmoderated internet comment threads.  Putin paid trolls could make such accusations, scum like Roger Stone and Mike Cernovich and James O'Keefe could and, as this goes on, they will.   As the phony calls from the fake "Washington Post journalist Lenny Bernstein" to try to ratfuck the election in Alabama proves, they're already doing things like that.  And it isn't only FOX that has promoted the standard where anonymous accusations are aired and treated as if they are as reliable as those to which people with no history of Republican propaganda are willing to put their names on.

And it also will, inevitably, introduce into the mix people whose primary motive is the insane desire to have their face and name put on TV - which I think is the motive of at least one of the named Franken accusers, the one whose husband apparently didn't notice his wife was being touched inappropriately.   Anyone who thinks Al Franken is stupid enough to do something like that with the woman's husband as a witness, in public, at a State Fair is too stupid to be pay attention to.  Yet the American media did exactly that as did the Senators and journalists who hounded Franken from office.

Democrats, liberals have been suckered in this way, continually, for as long as I can remember, being assigned the impossible task to being not only above any justifiable reproach, but beyond even opportunistic suspicion.  There is a wide middle ground between that unrealistic, imaginary purity and the cesspool of Republican tolerance.  I suggest Democrats and especially those who hounded Franken from office, find a place in between where they might actually be able to function in political office and do things like those real sleeveen in the Johnson administration and the Congress of the mid-60s did, pass thing like The Voting Rights Act, The Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.  You know, exactly the kinds of things that Democrats were able to do only once during the Obama administration,  pass the American Care Act which only got through BECAUSE AL FRANKEN WON ELECTION TO THE SENATE.   If he hadn't been there, it would never have become law. If Moore wins, it's gone.  That's real.

I do think it's obvious that one Senator has probably ended her hopes of being president,  Kirsten Gillibrand with her grandstanding on this and on Bill Clinton has pretty much guaranteed that lots of Democrats will not support her.  I don't think I would have, anyway, I'm not impressed with her record and what I've read about her willingness to work with conservatives to get ahead reminds me of another politician I supported, though reluctantly, Barack Obama.  Who was hardly a great Democratic president.   Never in my lifetime did a Democrat piss away more chances to make progress than the scandal free Obama.    I have no affection for Bill Clinton whose idiotic sandbagging of Hillary Clinton in his meeting with Loretta Lynch meant that the only thing I ever want to hear from him again is nothing.    Al Franken doesn't  deserve to be put in the same classification as Bill Clinton.   If the gossip about Gillibrands unprincipled ambition isn't true, she can hardly complain about being judged by a standard she practiced.