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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
Obv… Al Freaken.
Hell I nap on the train at the end of the day.
As with all other public apologies from people caught with their hands 1) in their pants 2) in other people’s pants 3) on non-consenting persons or 4) in the public coffers, there is no remorse nor sense of shame. They are sorry only for being caught. If morality and virtue are relative then there is neither.
Now, along with the allegations against Roy Moore, both sides will line up to defend their pervert (“He may be a perv, but he’s OUR perv!”).
Or who is in charge.
Well, she told her husband.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/al-franken-accuser-leeann-tweeden-stayed-quiet-angry/story?id=51218706
And, of course, the photograph is certainly confirmation of part of her story – and circumstantial evidence to support her characterization of Franken and to suggest that the “kissing” part of her story is valid also.
“…Al’s a friend, but he was always a wonk. I’m not a wonk, I don’t care about politics. He’s a wonk; he likes that stuff. I remember Al called me when he was running and said, ‘Listen, I’m running for the Senate. I want to do an ad where you come out and go, ‘Hi, I’m Dennis Miller, I worked with Al Franken on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ he was my boss, we’ve been friends for much of my adult life, I love him and his family, he’s a great father, a great husband. All that being said, I would never, ever, ever vote for him for the United States Senate. And then Al was going to jump in with this thumbs-up and go, ‘I’m Al Franken and I approve this ad!’ So Al to me is an ‘SNL’ alum who happens to be in the Senate, not a senator who was on ‘SNL.’ [Laughs] He’s a comedian to me. And he should be proud that I think of him more as a comedian than I do as a senator.” — Dennis Miller, 2013
Dennis always said that the kind of jokes that comedians tell behind the scenes were way to shocking for … the rest of us. (Often repeated phrase: “Am I’m going to go to Hell just for listening to this?”)
The photo itself is little more than putting bunny-ear fingers behind a person’s head. I think she’s the one who released the photo. The kissing skit sounds like something an impish male comedian would do when on a trip with a famous model, but it sounds like he was way too aggressive.
Dennis was friends with Robin Williams too. I think both Al Franken and Robin Williams made numerous trips overseas. They didn’t have to do that, essentially for free. I think Dennis refused to go these trips except for one trip to GITMO as he thought the troops done there were being ridiculed and ignored.
There were stories where Franken would act like a jerk.
It’s the pattern of his life that bothers me more. A person, even a senator or future senator, should be able to act a bit like a comedian, but he did it in the wrong way.
I think Dennis Miller also told a story about during one of his first photo shoots for Saturday Night Live that he made some joking slightly off-color yet very harmless comment about not wanting to be photographed next to the women. This would have been over 30 years ago. I think one of the photographers said do you want make comments like that anymore in public as you are now going to be in the public eye, and almost everything you do will be recorded on camera. I think Dennis got the point, but it looks like Franken, a comedian from the John Belushi and Chevy Chase era, never did.
Minnesota could do a lot better than Franken. Let’s hope they show him the door.
Even CNN is coming around on Franken:
Your Apology Sucks
For a democrat, once you’ve lost CNN, the game is almost over.