Each week, USA TODAY's OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other's media bubble.
This week, conservative and liberal media reacted to the resignations of two congressional Democrats over sexual harassment allegations: Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and Michigan Rep. John Conyers.
Many on the left applauded Senate Democrats for calling on Franken to step down, saying it gives them the moral high ground over the Republicans who have stood by men accused of sexual misconduct, like President Trump and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Pundits on the right, meanwhile, said Democrats called on Franken to step down because of politics, not morals.
If Democrats are "going to support women in our policies and rhetoric, we also have to support them with our actions — and that includes standing against sexual assault and sexual harassment, regardless of whether the perpetrator is within our own party," Sally Kohn said in a commentary for CNN. "This is moral leadership."
"Paradoxically, Republicans in Alabama and across the country who continue to support Senate candidate Roy Moore claim to do so because of moral values," she said.
This is not moral leadership; it is moral hypocrisy. It is treating principles as things you pick and choose at a cafeteria, depending on which party is offering you the menu. Real principles, and the principles behind true moral and ethical leadership, are consistently applied no matter what.
FROM THE RIGHT: FRANKEN DOESN'T 'REALLY REGRET ANYTHING'
Franken never apologized nor admitted any wrongdoing in his resignation speech and instead "remained defiant," which proves his stepping down was just a Democratic political maneuver, argued Siraj Hashmi in the Washington Examiner.
"In what should have been a contrite, self-reflecting apology speech, he felt the need to toss a political hand grenade over to Republicans for continuing to back President Trump and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, despite them being accused of a mounting number of allegations of sexual misconduct," Hashmi said.
Hashmi said Franken's lack of contrition shows that the Democrats made him a "sacrificial lamb" to "seize the moral high ground."
"This is just politics as usual," Hashmi said, "and Franken really doesn't regret anything he's done."
FROM THE LEFT: TIME FOR A '#TRUMPTOO MOMENT'
The Nation's Joan Walsh was initially reluctant to call for Franken — whom she called an "excellent senator" and she had hoped would run for president — to resign. "But as the stream of allegations went on, it became obvious Franken couldn’t continue to be effective," she said.
"Still, I would like to see Franken’s departure be not just another #MeToo moment but a long-delayed #TrumpToo moment," Walsh said, suggesting the minority party should hold toothless hearings to get Trump's accusers on the congressional record.
I think it would encourage demoralized progressives considerably if Democrats followed Franken’s departure with a strategy to bring Trump to public account for his serial abuse. And to shame House Speaker Paul Ryan for having the audacity to weigh in on now-retired Democratic representative John Conyers, while saying nothing about Farenthold. Democrats are doing the right thing, morally, but they really need to figure out the right thing, politically. This doesn’t end with Franken’s departure. It begins.
FROM THE RIGHT: IT'S 'MORAL PREENING,' NOT ACTUAL MORALS
"Democrats are feeling smugly morally superior right now," wrote Erick Erickson for Fox News Opinion. "They should not."
Erickson said Franken resigned only because "it is politically expedient for him to do so" and so that the media can "use him to assail the Republicans" after Roy Moore wins. (The Alabama Republican is sure to win, according to Erickson, because "everyone seems to have forgotten about the accusations of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore except the die-hard partisans.")
"Do not kid yourself. If Al Franken was all that stood in the way of a Republican majority in the Senate, Democrats would be circling the wagons and attacking his accusers," Erickson said. But, he also cautioned the Republicans against ignoring "the Moore situation."
"Both sides have cried wolf and turned enough blind eyes that everyone seems to be willfully deaf and blind," he said.
FROM THE LEFT: DEMOCRATS MAY REGRET DOING THE RIGHT THING
The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky said that "if the Democrats think that taking the high ground on this one is going to score them any points, my bet is they’re sadly mistaken," Tomansky said.
Tomasky said the political "opportunism" was behind Franken's resignation was obvious and that there was no way his Democratic colleagues would have called for him to step down if Minnesota had a Republican governor. But more importantly, Franken's departure won't help, "because rank-and-file Democrats take sexually inappropriate behavior a lot more seriously than rank-and-file Republicans do."
Maybe it will impress some female swing voters in Alabama. But it seems more likely that the Republican way of handling these things is going to win. Deny, deny, deny. Lie, lie, lie. Pushback, pushback, pushback. Be so outrageous — the Republican National Committee officially supporting an accused child molester! — that people can barely wrap their heads around it. Sad to say, it wins.
I’m not saying the Democrats should reduce themselves to that level. As I said, Franken should go. But I’m not sure what the Democrats are getting out of it. They’re losing one of their best and smartest senators, somebody who would have been a quite plausible presidential contender in 2020; and failing that would have been a great and important lifetime senator
FROM THE RIGHT: 'TRUMP'S FRANKENMOORE NIGHTMARE'
In the game of political chess, Franken's resignation put the Republican Party and President Trump in check, opined The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
"It is not hard to see what is going on here," the paper's editorial board said. "The Democrats are creating a Frankenmoore nightmare for Donald Trump."
"The Democrats are eliminating their stains, while the Republicans are endorsing theirs. You have to believe in magic to think this is going to end well for Republicans," the editorial said, arguing that the only move now for Trump and the GOP is to "disown" Moore immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment