When you acknowledge something, even if you say things didn't happen the way accusers say they did, you admit guilt. Deny, deny, deny seems to be a better strategy.

As Bernie says: "...but what you have is a situation where senator Franken acknowledged wrongdoing on several occasions, inappropriate behavior, and he felt that the appropriate thing to do was to offer his resignation."

I don't think Franken would have resigned if nothing was there, and think that his actions were honest. People make mistakes, and good people face up to the realities of their mistakes. I think he took the action that led to the least harm.

the fact that Franken's resignation was forced.

colleagues demanded publicly he did so. I just can't understand why he would say he is going to resign.

Not so Franken’s.
Plus Franken with his rising star popularity and dogged fighting spirit, and age, would have been a formidable primary opponent for the party’s presidential candidacy.

Yeah, I am a tad suspicious of motives.
It is politics.

There is a real danger of losing that seat.

Franken will be 69 in 2020 which I think would be a disadvantage. But I totally agree about his popularity and dogged fighting spirit, not to mention his eloquence and intellect. We're losing one of our best.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

I wish Franken had been on the show, too. Lend some perspective. "Well, Bernie, I wanted an investigation, but I succumbed to peer pressure from my so called friends."

I don't know how they would've treated it if the Democrats had stood by their colleague, but if Dems thought they'd get credit for being so pure & principled, they were sorely mistaken. Everybody, including Chuck Todd(!), can see right through them.

When Trump is the threat.

life. Maybe he just did not want to go through the process of accusations and refuting and arguing against them.

Maybe he does ot believe the women are telling the truth.

Al Franken has so much talent and is such a great man. We have not heard the last from him. I would say the saga of the accusations has probably just begun. Al Franken can write; he can speak; this is not over.

That train already left the station. I think it was a mistake, but they made it in the full glare of the public spotlight, and they jumped off that cliff holding hands - the overwhelming majority of the caucus signed off on it. Backpedaling now will make them look even worse to the larger public than would reopening that can of worms again.

We are not a typical cross section of voters at DU. Senators could win major brownie points from us by admitting they made a mistake, but most people would view them as hopelessly indecisive and muddled if they suddenly tried to unwind what they just did now. It will take some major new development - like the surfacing of an email chain documenting how Franken was set up, for them to revisit this matter again. It sucks, but I can see the bind they've put themselves in.

they are stuck now. I seriously doubt they can reverse this. Al could demand it and I wish he would but I will be surprised if he does.

That said I do not think this is limited to DU. The internet is ablaze with it. Look at any of those senators social media feeds they are all a mess. That is not just DU.

People are not going to stand for a zero tolerance agenda on this. It makes a mockery of our system. It sounds good in theory but does not work as a policy. Life just isn't that black and white.

Sadly that leaves the Dems stuck they can't reverse it for fear of looking foolish and if they don't they have pissed off a whole lot of people.


There is no good end to this I can see.

He does not represent what most Democrats think. He is an independent, not a Democrat.

And it is very illuminating that he ducked responsibility.