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Broadcaster Accuses Sen. Al Franken of Kissing, Groping Without Consent
As Democrats (rightly) inveigh against Senate candidate Roy Moore’s gross behavior, one of their own senators has been accused. TV host and sports broadcaster Leeann Tweeden accused Sen. Al Franken (D–MN) of kissing and groping her without her consent on a 2006 USO Tour.
Three years before Minnesota voters sent Franken to the Senate, he performed as a comedian in a show for US troops in the Middle East. Because battle-weary troops love them some Stuart Smalley. Tweeden, a former model featured in FHM, Maxim, and Playboy, was only supposed to be the emcee but was surprised to see that Franken had written her into a skit.
Here’s how Tweeden describes it:
When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd.
On the day of the show Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, “We need to rehearse the kiss.” I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.’
He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable.
He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.
I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.
I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth.
For the rest of the tour, Tweeden avoided Franken and made sure never to be alone with him. Franken responded with insults, and later, a creepy photo:
The tour wrapped and on Christmas Eve we began the 36-hour trip home to L.A. After 2 weeks of grueling travel and performing I was exhausted. When our C-17 cargo plane took off from Afghanistan I immediately fell asleep, even though I was still wearing my flak vest and Kevlar helmet.
It wasn’t until I was back in the US and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one:
Thursday morning, Franken offered a weak apology through his press office. “I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann,” he said. “As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Franken rose to prominence in the coke-fueled early days of “Saturday Night Live,” so I won’t be surprised if several other accusers step forward. And since sexual harrassment is rife on Capitol Hill, the Minnesota senator won’t be the last to be outed before this is all over. I suspect there are many nervous senators and congressmen who aren’t getting a lot of sleep these days.
Published in General
@eherring – Please find a different adjective to describe the despicable Sen. Franken, because “Weird” is already taken by a man of much greater moral and intellectual authority.
Hmm…
Well this is not looking too good for Senator Stuart Smalley.
https://twitter.com/MelMorgan1350/status/931221482671300609
In general, I find the usage of things said in the Writers’ Room, as some are doing with things he said in the SNL room, to be dirty pool. I’ve been in a couple, and sometimes you say things to vent, sometimes you get magic from saying the worst thing that comes to mind, etc.
That said, earlier this same day Franken was trying to paint Judge Willett as a homophobe for a joke tweet and called an “expert” on humor by the blue checkmark mafia.
I find the irony delicious.
The story’s here. No gropage. Al being his charming self, more or less.
John Ziegler‘s take on Mediaite:
“I Loathe Al Franken, But It Sure Seems Like He is Getting Totally Railroaded”
I have two reactions:
I got to see Franken up close and personal in a small group setting in 2005. He is obnoxious, close-minded, yet thinks of himself as someone with great insight, something I found him totally lacking in. Regardless of politics he’s just a nasty guy. This is no surprise to me.
This whole thing is continuing to escalate. To be Frank(en), both parties are going to take Moore hits.
Nope, If I can’t say inappropiate things at my job why should others. I am tired of the it is ok if THEY do it but we get to hang you high if you do it rule.
I couldn’t. Would violate the site rules on bad language.
As a CEO (When I was one), if I found a “funny” picture taken of one of my workers pretending to grope a college, he would be fired so fast it would make his head spin.
This is not a free speech issue, it is a sexual harrassment issue. I am just going on what I know my former HR director would have said. It is like making racially charged statements. GA is right to work. You are gone buddy.
I must live a pretty boring life. Doesn’t anyone, anywhere just go to work, do their job and come back home?
I hate Al Franken, you hate Al Franken, we all really hate Al Franken, but the only story here seems to be that the senator kissed a woman other than his wife. What we have is a picture showing the tips of Franken’s fingers touching the outside of a Kevlar vest and a description of a consensual kiss that was a little more than what Tweeden thought she signed up for. I don’t know much about Kevlar, but I do have a general idea that it stops bullets. Are we now saying that sexual assault can occur through literal armor? As for the kiss, I’m sure what Tweeden describes as pestering was in Franken’s mind a coy and seductive repartee. That’s because he’s an idiot. I guess Franken should have responded to Tweeden’s “OK” by demanding a notarized list of consented to behaviors? Then again I thought that was the kind of thing over which conservatives had been endlessly mocking campus progressives. On the other hand, Franken will make for a convenient “What about..” to ease the consciences of Conservatives who defend Trump and Moore, so I’m sure we’ll be in for more than one learned essay explaining how grabbing them by the Kevlar is in fact the basest of sexual misdeeds.
It does not matter. This act would get him fired in almost any (non-union) company in America. It is clear. This has nothing to do with Trump or Moore or anyone else. This photo is sufficient for a termination.
Now, do you do it because he did it at his last job? I doubt it. Still, I imagine, once public in the organization, I would have had pressure to terminate.
Based on the current trials of Bill Clinton, Al Franken will be hounded out of public life sometime around 2037.
It’s open season on white males – party affiliation no longer important. Maybe SNL will do a skit on it? Probably not….
Yeah, I think most people do. But then you have Washington . . . and Hollywood, . . . and well . . . those places aren’t normal.
Yesterday, Franken tried to make the case that Justice Willett should not be confirmed because of a joke that fell flat, and the Justice didn’t harass anyone. He is a bully who needs a taste of his own medicine.
I have always found Franken to be exceedingly pompous and obnoxious, kind of like the Bill O’Reilly of the left. I’m also convinced he doesn’t belong in the Senate – there is not a scintilla of doubt that if he beat Norm Coleman by 300 votes, at least 300 + 1 came from ineligible voters. But I think we’re setting a bad precedent here. The man made an obnoxious error in judgment ten years ago, but he didn’t rape a 14 year old girl. He went too far with a woman on a USO tour, the whole purpose of which was to indulge in raunchy banter and double-entres to entertain young soldiers away from home. This woman made her living posing in Playboy, FMH and Maxim, now she’s shocked, shocked that someone would want to take physical liberties with her.
I hope these charges make Democrat women vote against this scumdog in the next election, but I don’t think they rise to the level of expulsion.
EDIT: Let me elaborate on this, I am only talking about an official expulsion. If he is forced out by popular outcry I think that would be great.
Double post.
I think only the people with no shame and limited desire to “do the right thing” can survive the microscopic attention of our voyeuristic society or the constant deal making of lobbyists and money movers.
I can’t imagine how any decent person would willingly put themselves through that hell.
I did, then I made a mistake of calling a woman a woman and another woman that was not part of the conversation overheard it and took offense and went to HR after which I no longer had a job to go to. The company’s point of view is that it was easier to be rid of the potential issue and be seen as addressing the problem to limit their possible liability than take a chance on retaining me. So when I hear about Franklin or Clinton or Moore, well welcome to the jungle baby. This is the new world we seem to want.
Somebody has to say it: Al Franken is a big fat idiot. (I hope people remember that reference.)
I do
Time to write a new book: Al Franken is a Big, Fat Pervert.
And what latter day Flo Ziegfeld signed Al Franken to entertain our troops? What, was Carrot Top all booked up?
What bothers me is that anyone can step forward without any contemporaneous corroboration for something that occurred 40 years ago and expect respect for the accusations as though she had put her hand on the bible in a court of law. I totally do not believe that a woman who went through some aggressive sexual harassment event wouldn’t tell a friend or a relative at the time. Women talk to each other, especially about lecherous men. Years ago I once complained to a very good friend that her husband had embarrassed me with his roving hands at a party. He never bothered me again, and, amazingly, she and I remained friends. Women talk. A young woman may not tell her mother, but you can bet your bottom dollar she told a friend or a boyfriend.
Do not concern yourself for a second on this occurring. The Media and Democrats protect their own. The Menendez trial has been drawing out over months and the Media have barely spoken of it, Democrats refused to say they would vote to expel him even if convicted!
This will be a round hand-wringing and then forgotten in 48 hours.
I worked for a company where a woman, let’s call her XY, was known to be very flirtatious. Another woman left the company and started a website XYsucks.com. The head of marketing got her to shut the website down. Yes, I would expect a woman to talk about it.
I agree. I suspect this current level of hand wringing is to create a situation that Trump and other prominent GOP have to resign or be removed. Some lower level Democrat’s might get hurt but most will get cover to weather the storm.
So I guess the media is using the ‘Jon Stewart defense’: He was just being a comedian!
“Clown Nose On.”