DEMS PILING UP ‘PURITY’ POINTS

Women have been screaming into the void on mute about sexual misconduct for centuries, but this fall it feels like someone switched on the sound and suddenly everyone is listening at maximum volume. It’s about time. But the message of #MeToo gets muddled when Al Franken resigns from the Senate while the President and his party push Roy Moore, an accused child molester, into it. The only thing Dems prove by dumping Franken is that they’re desperate to win a purity contest their Republican opponents aren’t even competing in. That’s not to excuse Franken, whom several women have accused of forcibly kissing them, and who posed for an offensive photograph pantomiming grabbing a woman’s breasts. His behavior is disturbing and disgusting, and he deserves to be called out. But unlike other abusers who’ve offered selfserving apologies, Franken has taken responsibility for his actions (while denying others) and agreed to cooperate with an ethics investigation. He’s also validated the experience of those he violated, saying in response to the photograph: “I don’t know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn’t matter. There’s no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself ... It’s obvious how Leeann (Tweeden) would feel violated by that picture. And, what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it — women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me ... They deserve to be heard, and believed ... I have let them down and am committed to making it up to them.” In contrast, Moore has slandered his accusers, claimed to be the victim of a media witch hunt, and refused calls for him to step aside. These two things are not the same. There are no sacred cows, and I hope some fantastic woman replaces Franken to bring female representation in the Senate up from a pathetic 21 to a still pathetic 22 out of 100. But the point of #MeToo is not to render all crimes equal or obliterate the meaning of justice, but to highlight wrongs and right systems. Democrats would do better to discard former President Bill Clinton, who has been accused by multiple women of rape and other sexual violations — instead of featuring him at fund-raisers like Gov. Cuomo’s next week — and continue to shame Republicans for waging a very real war on women by destroying access to abortion and denying them birth control. Franken has spent his political career pursuing policies to make society more equal for women, and he’s violated them. That doesn’t make it OK, and we’re not over it, but he’s a weak whipping boy for a moment that demands better. Grenell is a political consultant in New York.