Angry Partisan Thumb: Bill Clinton's 1978 Rape of Juantia Broadderick Was "Empowered" by the Republicans' Defense of Clarence Thomas Thirteen Years Later in 1991

Okay, #FakeNews "Republican" (actually, he claims to be a "Proud Independent," which is also #FakeNews) and ABC Political "Analyst" Matthew Dowd doesn't talk about the Juanita Broadrick rape. But surely he knows that Clinton's abuse of women long predates the Clarence Thomas hearings...?

Apparently not. By his telling, Clinton was "empowered" to do things in the past by things that would only happen in the future.

According to Dowd, the only reason Justice Thomas was confirmed to sit on the court was that of tribal politics. "I think until we take off our jersey and say some things are not about our Jersey. Some things are not about the tribe that we're in," he pontificated. "We saw this in '91, then the Republicans gave up their values in order to get Justice Thomas on the court."

"They basically called Anita Hill a nut and a liar in order to get Justice Thomas on the court. They empowered Bill Clinton," he continued to proclaim, devoid of any facts or reason. "But in order to get those things, they decided the ends justify the means. They decided that a tainted person was better to get what they wanted."

Here are some people who cannot take their partisan shirts off and call out sexual assailants:

Notice they refuse to note that Leeann Tweeden also alleged that Franken committed the sexual battery of sticking his tongue into her mouth, not only unexpectedly but previously explicitly forbidden.

She said "NO" even to a fake stage kiss; he decided to force his tongue into her mouth anyway.

Here's another guy who can't take off his partisan shirt and call out his own tribe: Matthew J. Dowd himself, who, despite my badgering, continues insisting that Al Franken owned up to what he did:

No, he didn't. This is the standard liberal line, from Matthew Dowd to FoxNews "analyst" AB Stoddard: Al Franken admitted what he did.

No, he didn't. Tweeden had photographic proof he groped her; he "admitted" that, which could not be denied. There was a fucking picture of him caught red-handed, as it were.

He refuses to admit the even more egregious part of her allegation, that he forcibly tongue kissed her.

"He just put his hand on the back of my head and mashed his face against me," Tweeden said in a news conference Thursday. "It happened so fast. He mashed his lips against my face and stuck his tongue in my mouth so fast. All I can remember is that his lips were really wet and slimy."

Franken has not only not admitted that act but has said he has a different memory of the moment.

"I certainly don't remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann," Franken said in his first statement after the news broke.

Later, in a more extensive statement -- one in which he discussed the photo at length --- Franken said, "While I don't remember the rehearsal for the skit as Leeann does, I understand why we need to listen to and believe women's experiences."

On Friday, Franken addressed the subject for a third time, in an email to Tweeden. He apologized for the photo, but said, again: "I remember that rehearsal differently."

Franken added, on the rehearsal incident, that "What's important is the impact on you and you felt violated by my actions. For that I apologize." The email was a classic I'm-sorry-if-you-were-offended apology that did not admit the behavior alleged.

In none of the statements did Franken say what his memory of the incident is.

He's calling her a liar. That's what you're saying when you say your "memory differs."

Because there's no proof on that one.

Just her claim.

Which counts as proof against Roy Moore, but not against Al Franken, for some reason I can't even guess at.

And I think the forcible tongue-kiss is the worst offense. I suspected women would say the same thing, so I put up a poll on Twitter:

691 votes, 91% saying the forcible tongue kiss is the more egregious violation, only 9% saying the groping was the worst one.

A friend relayed to me the input of his wife. She said the tongue-kiss was worse, "and it isn't even close."

I suspect that's because of the penetrative, wet, biological agent aspect of it.

I also suspected that because I tried imagining what I would think was worse, if a gay guy did the same to me. (I say "Gay guy" because an unwanted sexual battery from a woman, while unwanted and maybe even gross, wouldn't really be a huge deal either way. I'd just push her away and say "Stop.")

Some guy pulling a Terry Crews on my junk -- a brief squeeze -- versus a tongue-in-your-mouth forcible kiss? As my friend's wife said: Not even close.

Not happy about either, but the latter is definitely worse.

But the media -- Matthew Dowd, Dave Wiegel, Gloria Borger, that partisan robot Josh Marshall, FoxNews' AB Stoddard -- all insist on pretending the latter just wasn't alleged at all, so they can claim that Al Franken "manned up" and admitted his sins.

posted by Ace at 02:57 PM

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