An uncomfortable number of people here missing the point of #metoo and people like Al Franken [View all]

[realmirage]

Last edited Tue Sep 18, 2018, 09:05 AM - Edit history (1)

Michelle Goldberg of the NYT did a pretty good article about this. She's using Maher as an example, but I've been seeing the same sort of argument used all over DU. The same trend seems to be in effect for Louis ck as well as was evident in a recent thread about him.

Goldberg:

"I am not unsympathetic to those who want to begin the fraught conversation about how these men — and, now, a couple of women — might redeem themselves and re-enter public life. Before we do that, though, we should clarify a few things. It’s one thing to say that people who have harmed others, and feel remorse, deserve an opportunity to make amends, and shouldn’t be pariahs forever. Most people shouldn’t be defined by the worst thing they’ve ever done.

There’s a difference, however, between arguing that someone merits a second chance, and insisting that he didn’t do anything all that wrong in the first place, that his accusers are exaggerating, or that his humiliation makes him the real victim.

Maybe this distinction seems obvious, but recently I’ve seen it elided again and again. Last Friday, I flew to Los Angeles to appear on “Real Time With Bill Maher.” Maher’s closing monologue was a call for Al Franken, who resigned from the Senate in January amid allegations of groping, to return to politics. It’s fair to argue that the things Franken was accused of — pretending to molest a sleeping woman while posing for a photograph, grabbing other women’s butts — aren’t irredeemable sins, and that he shouldn’t be permanently banished from politics.

Instead, Maher disparaged the credibility of the women who spoke out against Franken, and mocked their complaints. “You know, when you’re a politician, being touchy-feely is kind of part of the job,” he said. (At one point I interrupted him, which you’re not supposed to do in that segment; it was awkward.)"


....snip

"maybe they’d find it easier to resurrect their careers if it seemed like they’d reflected on why women are so furious in the first place"


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/opinion/columnists/metoo-movement-franken-hockenberry-macdonald.html