Why did senators who asked Franken to resign hug him afterwards?

[better]

63. The high-minded idealism you express is laudable. And catastrophically naive, in my opinion.

It's a safe bet that all of us here (who aren't trolls) are on the same page about wanting to highlight that our side is for protecting women and the other side is against protecting them. On the surface, your argument that Franken makes the difference less clear makes sense, and in a sane world, that might actually justify what was done here. But we do not live in a sane world, and the longer we keep acting as though we do, the sooner we are going to reach the point of no return.

Let's unpack your "one small man" argument for a moment. First of all, the problem is that the one small man in question happens to also be the one small man who had the vision to spot Goliath's (Sessions) weakness, and cast the stone on target. Secondly, the reaction was vastly disproportionate to the situation.

I would draw your attention to how we responded to Patton in the wake of the infamous "slapping incident". He was publicly excoriated, passed over to lead the invasion of northern Europe, and required to apologize for his misdeeds. But he wasn't kicked off the battlefield. Instead, he was employed to confuse the enemy as to allied invasion plans, before eventually being given command of the Third Army. Notably, we did not deny him air support as he stormed across France to lead the relief of American troops in Bastogne during the Battle of the Buldge, and ultimately invade Nazi Germany. That would seem to be somewhat of a validation of War Secretary Henry Stimson's assessment that retaining Patton was a poor move for public relations, but the right decision militarily.

The fact remains that our enemy in this war (and it is a war and we are their enemy, whether or not we view them as ours) is looking for any way they can to take our generals off the field, and in handling this the way we have, we have given them a roadmap to do so with minimal effort or cost. If we do not recognize the danger of that course of action and adjust course, we should expect it not to stop at "one small man" or one senate seat.