Creep away, creeps
It took too many weeks after the revelation that he had repeatedly sexually harassed staffers, too many acrobatics from Democratic leaders. But in the end, Michigan Rep. John Conyers upped and left his workplace the way all serial sexual harassers should: without ceremony. Though Conyers, a 52-year veteran of Congress, cast his resignation as a “retirement,” it was actually a resignation in disgrace. Fellow Democrats realized they could no longer defend the presence in their midst of a powerful man who had a consistent habit of treating female staffers as providers of sexual gratification.
A second test of the party’s seriousness will be the fate of freshman Ruben Kihuen of Nevada, who allegedly sexually harassed a campaign worker.
In the balance is Sen. Al Franken, whose sofar-revealed sins — claims his hand strayed toward women’s backsides during photo shoots and a kiss in the context of a skit rehearsal — have yet to implicate his fundamental fitness to serve.
Meanwhile, Republicans, including conservatives who once said the opposite, now double down on the notion that character doesn’t matter.
President Trump issued a full-throated endorsement of Roy Moore in next Tuesday’s Senate special election in Alabama, despite Moore being credibly accused of sexual conduct as a thirtysomething prosecutor with a 14-year-old and assaulting another teen when she was 16.
When Trump, who had previously straddled the fence, put his weight behind the accused child abuser, the Republican National Committee — which had pulled out of Alabama — rushed back in.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had professed to believe Moore’s accusers, now amorally mumbles that it is “up to the people of Alabama” to decide.
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas, who settled a sexual harassment complaint with a former staffer to the tune of $84,000 — three times the payout Conyers agreed to — doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
No one should want a witchhunt that treats all accusations equally. All should demand, for starters, credibly accused sexual harassers or abusers to be run out on a rail. Or, even better, for them to never be elected in the first place.