Al Franken accuser says disgusting USO tour grope photo was an 'in your face' parting shot [TR]

The radio host groped and forcibly kissed by now-Senator Al Franken during a 2006 USO show says the now-infamous photo of the Democrat's hands on her breasts while she slept wasn't meant as a joke: It was an 'in your face' parting shot after nearly two weeks of being 'belittled and humiliated.'

The lawmaker issued a third apology to former Playboy model Leeann Tweeden on Friday afternoon just before she appeared on 'The View,' a sign that he may feel support slipping among advocates who want him to weather the storm and refuse to resign

Tweeden said hours earlier on 'Good Morning America' that she 'had to endure being with him for almost two weeks' after 'he stuck his tongue in my mouth' as Franken mocked her with one passive-aggressive gesture after another.

So he used the auspices of a ‘skit’ that he wrote...

Apparently...

What a sleaze bag. And he was married with two kids at the time.

"In Tweeden’s account, published by the Los Angeles radio station KABC 790, Franken first assaulted her during the tour. Franken had written a comedy skit in which he would have to kiss her, and he insisted on rehearsing the skit backstage, despite her protests. Per Tweeden’s account:

He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.
I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.
I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth.
I felt disgusted and violated.

Tweeden wrote that she chose not to alert her supervisors of the incident, so as not to “cause trouble” while in the middle of a war zone, and ignored Franken for the remainder of the tour. It wasn’t until she returned home to L.A., she wrote, that she saw the photo, taken during the 36-hour flight from Afghanistan to L.A. “I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated,” she wrote.

Every time I hear his voice or see his face, I am angry. I am angry that I did his stupid skit for the rest of that tour. I am angry that I didn’t call him out in front of everyone when I had the microphone in my hand every night after that. I wanted to. But I didn’t want to rock the boat. I was there to entertain the troops and make sure they forgot about where they were for a few hours. Someday, I thought to myself, I would tell my story.

Franken has already responded. Suffice it to say, this won’t cut it.

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/145859/al-franken-big-trouble

Exactly. I've waded into the DU forums to read their threads about this photo dissecting the "shadows" under his hands or the fact that she was wearing the armor... among other loony explanations blaming her and absolving him.

He may not have even touched her in this photo incident but the much more important aspect which gets often overlooked is her statement that it was his parting shot and the culmination of his continued harassment to have that image be sent to her afterwards.

She was disgusted by his non-consensual nasty tongue kiss and then he continued to harass her throughout the duration of the show. His actions and this photo was continuation of the harassment whether he touched her or not.

It also doesn’t help that there are a LOT of women out there making bogus complaints, or retroactive assessments. The degradation of social rules and cues also makes it less clear than it should be.

These things create a broad and dangerous gray area not only for both sides, but for third parties.

It’d be nice to be able to believe every complaint, and just be able to go off on offenders without reservation.

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