Just now on CNN KABC Radio Newshost Leeann Tweeden who just today revealed that she received and unwanted tongue kiss by Al Franken in 2006 during a USO tour, and that he additional took a picture miming his grabbing her breasts while she slept listened as Jake Tapper read portions of Al Franken’s extended apology about this situation and responded that she “accepted his apology.”
Here’s when she first brought the subject up on her show with Doug McIntire following an interview she’d recently had with Rep. Jackie Spieres who has been pointing out that $15 Million has been recently paid out in settlements with Capital Hill Staffers, and that there are two current members of the House who have be alleged to be harassers.
It has to be said and acknowledged that Franken’s response is a damn sight better or more contrite than anything we’ve heard from any other man in a position of power who has been in a similar situation.
“The first thing I want to do is apologize: to Leeann, to everyone else who was part of that tour, to everyone who has worked for me, to everyone I represent, and to everyone who counts on me to be an ally and supporter and champion of women,” Franken said.
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“I don’t know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn’t matter. There’s no excuse,” he said. “I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn’t funny. It’s completely inappropriate. It’s obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it — women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.”
“The intentions behind my actions aren’t the point at all,” he said. “It’s the impact these jokes had on others that matters. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come to terms with that.”
Franken said he doesn’t recall the incidents described by Tweeden in the same way she does, and he called for a Senate ethics investigation and promised to “gladly cooperate.”
“What people think of me in light of this is far less important than what people think of women who continue to come forward to tell their stories,” Franken said. “They deserve to be heard, and believed. And they deserve to know that I am their ally and supporter. I have let them down and am committed to making it up to them.”
And here is Tweeden with Jake Tapper.
She is extremely illuminating as she makes a valid point that this isn’t a partisan issue. An abuser doesn’t ask what your party affiliation is ahead of time and it shouldn’t matter which party the abuser belongs to.
She didn’t say that she felt Franken should step down from his position, and did say that if he called to apologize she’d take the call, although she had her husband had encountered Franken at least 8 years ago and he hadn’t offered an apology at that time, but she also said that both her and her husband said “Hi” and immediately left so I’m not sure there was much real chance to address it all right then.
She did go on to point out that these type of issues happen in many professions and still went on in Hollywood and business where women are often to shocked and concerned with how they’ll be perceived in these situations to come forward. She herself came forward not to damage Franken, but to hopefully inspire other women to open up and share what they’ve experienced in their own lives and hopefully shed more understanding and awareness on situations like these.
There is of course quite a dramatic difference between Franken’s situation in terms of intensity — he kissed her once “quickly” as she describes it, after which she shut him down cold and then he played a couple pranks on her, drawing devil horns on one of her head shots and the “boob grab” photo although from all intents he never touched her or really spoke with her again — and that persistent acts of stalking and assault on a minor that Roy Moore is accused of by 8 different women, or the 16 women who have accused Trump of similar criminal sexual assaults.
Somehow those that deny and defect despite independent accounts and evidence seem to skate past these things, but someone who apologizes and admit the wrongness of their actions like Franken or Louis CK are far more likely to be purged from public society.