Trump would ignore Leeann Tweeden's accusation completely and pretend it never happened, as he has ignored more than half a dozen credible allegations that Moore stalked and assaulted more than half a dozen underage girls at restaurants, malls and the YMCA.
When finally forced to comment on the incident in a press briefing Trump would proclaim that Tweeden knew what she signed up for when she agreed to do the skit. In a nonsensical aside, Trump would say that Tweeden is a has-been, has low ratings, is no longer a 10, and maybe isn't even a 9 or an 8 and is old and dried-up. He would say that this is a witch hunt, political correctness gone mad. People are trying to stop men from being men and women from being women.
Other surrogates would defend Republican Franken with various excuses: the kiss was just part of the skit. Any groping was accidental, or part of the act to make it seem more authentic and easier for the troops to identify with. This was for the troops, they'd emphasize, Republican Franken was a hero for devoting so much time to the USO!
The photo, they would say, is clear evidence that nothing untoward happened: who would mug for the camera like that if they were doing something wrong? They would claim that the whole thing was just "horseplay" being misinterpreted after the fact, like Trump's "locker room" talk when he bragged to Billy Bush about assaulting women.
Breitbart would invent a story that the photo was part of a campaign to prevent sexual assault in the military: the caption, they'd claim, was cropped when Tweeden posted it. It originally read, "DON'T DO THIS!"Pundits on Fox News would attack Tweeden. They would claim that she is a model who has made a career inciting lust in men. Who could blame Franken? They would note that she was one of the Top Hooters Girls of All Time. That she appeared scantily clad in many magazines, including Stuff Magazine, FHM and Playboy, where she also posed nude in 2011.
Fox & Friends would endlessly play images of Tweeden in a bikini in a garage, on a car, by an engine, wearing lingerie and stiletto heels, wearing a sexy Santa's suit, wearing a top open to her navel, and wearing nothing with strategically placed elbows. And photos from her Playboy shoot with black rectangles hiding the naughty bits.
Various Fox News shows would find half a dozen men who claim that they slept with Tweeden. They would find a dozen more who would say that she was a terrible tease and led them on, only to turn around and accuse them of groping her when she had invited the attention in the first place.
The national Republican Senatorial committee would attack Tweeden's motivation, and claim this is a partisan hit job. They would point out that in the elections prior to the incident she voted for the president of the opposing party. They would say that at 44 years old, Tweeden's looks are fading, her career is lagging and she did this to get more attention.
If he were a Republican, Franken would never admit the incident had happened. He would never apologize. Like Roy Moore, he would go on the offensive. He would say that she was the aggressor. He would portray her reason for not reporting it earlier -- that he was famous and accusing him would hurt her career -- as false because at the time she was a famous supermodel and NASCAR idol, and he was just a has-been comedian on the path to oblivion, before the he saw the light while serving the troops and decided to run for higher office.
Republican Franken would appear on Sean Hannity's show to defend himself. In the same way that Roy Moore said he only dated teenagers with their mothers' permission, Republican Franken would say that he okayed the script with Tweeden's agent first. Then, while trying to dance around that red herring, he'd admit that if he had groped her -- and he hadn't! -- it would have been an accident or a momentary lapse in judgment. One lone mistake in a long career only trying to make people laugh and serve the troops.
Then, when he was finally forced to admit he touched Tweeden's boob because they found his fingerprints there, he would say -- like every Republican who's had an affair in his thirties or forties -- that it was just a "youthful indiscretion."
But Franken is a Democrat. So he admitted his mistake. He apologized. He called for an investigation. He's taking his medicine.
Many Democrats and feminists are angry and disappointed. But should he be forced to resign? Leeann Tweeden herself doesn't think so:
When asked whether she thought Franken should resign, Tweeden said, “I didn’t do this to have him step down. I think Al Franken does a lot of good things in the Senate. You know, I think that’s for the people of Minnesota to decide. I’m not calling for him to step down. That was never my intention.”Other women, such as author Kate Harding, concur:
She continued, “I just wanted him to understand what he did was wrong and how he treated me and how abusers do that under the guise that it’s funny, or that ‘Oh, I can get away with it because I’m a comedian.’ That’s never funny. When you shine a light on it, that’s the culture of it — that’s the chance we need to make.”
As a feminist and the author of a book on rape culture, I could reasonably be expected to lead the calls for Al Franken to step down, following allegations that he forced his tongue down a woman’s throat, accompanied by a photo of him grinning as he moves in to grope her breasts while she sleeps. It’s disgusting. He treated a sleeping woman as a comedy prop, no more human than the contents of Carrot Top’s trunk, and I firmly believe he should suffer social and professional consequences for it.The Senate should hold an investigation into sexual assault in general, using the Franken case as a prime example of how seemingly innocent shenanigans are really assaults on women's persons.
But I don’t believe resigning from his position is the only possible consequence, or the one that’s best for American women.
They should invite Leeann Tweeden to testify. Then they should censure Franken for his behavior. Let the people know that this kind of behavior is not to be tolerated. Turn Franken into an example of the kind of contrition that men should show when they treat women like objects instead of human beings.
But it shouldn't stop there. The Senate should invite the 16 women that Donald Trump forcibly kissed, fondled, groped and slammed into walls to testify. They should hear testimony from the women that Roy Moore tried to rape.
Al Franken should not just resign and go away. He should demand that every man who violates a woman get the same sort of scrutiny that he's getting. He should demand equal treatment for all abusers.
This whole Franken thing could backfire terribly on Republicans. Next thing you know, they'll start accusing Franken and Tweeden of collusion, manufacturing the whole thing to increase the pressure to impeach Donald Trump.
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