Senator Al Franken and Representative John Conyers share a second thing in common (the first detailed in a previous article) since being forced to resign in one week - not the best of weeks for the Democrats. How many alleged incidents does it take for a political party to coalesce around a unified message? Nancy Pelosi is somewhat exposed playing the part of a pathogenic flip-flopper.
By the same token, before any Republicans start piling on about leftist hypocrisy, this author reminds them that the President's backing of Senate candidate Roy Moore lacks any semblance of honor and appears entirely politically motivated. It's not exactly been the best of weeks for the GOP either with the bad-timing concerning Jerusalem and full-fledged support for Moore on the part of the POTUS.
He said-she said vs. they said-he said
Both John Conyers and Al Franken had their backers when their respective, inappropriate behavior came to light. For Senator Franken's part - of all the men in high positions - he issued the most genuine and immediate apology of the lot.
Such actions made it more palatable to show continued support for the situation. John Conyers hid behind his Congressional Black Caucus founder's status and was defiant until the end. His lawyer looks rather presumptuous based on prior statements. The lawyer may maintain that only John Conyers made the decision and not Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Iconic value goes only so far counsel.
When there is a one-to-one ratio in the context of the presumption of innocence, one accuser doth not make for a legal case, or even a worthy narrative per se. When there are two or more, then an argument can be made that a pattern of behavior was in fact displayed by the accused, especially if the number of accusers reaches the high, single digits.
All the accusers cannot be lying in other words.
Roy Moore needs to follow suit and resign
The GOP Senate candidate in the great state of Alabama needs to step aside. Not only does he share questionable judgment like Al Franken in their official capacities, but he also shares a presumption of power like John Conyers. Swelled heads along with swelled egos lead to deflated legacies, sometimes with an ugly asterisk.
A maxim which politicians who face or may face similar predicaments that they all need to re-familiarize themselves with is "Just because you could doesn't mean you should." It doesn't really matter in terms of which behavior ranks higher on the offense meter - all three men were wrong to have engaged in such alleged activity.
When it comes to Roy Moore, the seemingly "consensual" allegation is, in fact, the worst.
No thirty some-odd-year-old man has any business being anything other than a positive, male role-model in the form of a pseudo-uncle to any fourteen-year-old. Forget about statutory definitions; it was wrong in the medieval times, the 20th century, and it is wrong now moving forward in the 21st century. Retrospective corrective lenses are the order of the day when reviewing anyone's past behavior regarding subject-matter that should just be so plainly obvious as to the right thing to do. That holds true regardless of one's comedic, CBC (Black Caucus), or District Attorney origins.