“And if you joke around for most of the week, you can really have fun on the weekends!”
Posted on 11/18/2017 7:56:33 AM PST by EdnaMode
UPDATE with video Bill Maher didn’t exactly go easy on his pal Al Franken tonight, spending much of the opening monologue and a big chunk of Real Time’s season finale tossing joke grenades at the Minnesota senator. But the HBO host drew a hard line between the former Saturday Night Live staffer and the ever-growing gang of famous abusers and grabbers.
Maher then described the scandal – the photo of Franken “mock-groping” Leeann Tweeden, then writing and demanding a rehearsal of a sketch calling for a kiss. “Al’s a friend,” Maher said, “but Al I gotta tell you, if you write a comedy sketch where you, Al Franken, kiss a model and the next line of dialogue isn’t ‘Get off of me, creepy,’ it’s not comedy, it’s science fiction.
Jokes out of the way, Maher got to his point: “He did a bad thing and the condemnation has been universal, which he deserves. What he doesn’t deserve is to be lumped in with Roy Moore. Or Kevin Space. Or Harvey Weinstein. Or Donald Trump, who calls his accusers liars, threatens to sue them, did long riffs at his rallies where he said they were too ugly for him to assault.
“Plus, with Al Franken we’re talking about one incident. Trump has 16 accusers. Roy Moore has nine. Roy Moore spent more time chatting up young girls at the mall than Santa Claus.”
Franken came up again later in the show when comedian and activist Chelsea Handler joined the panel and noted that Franken, facing one allegation, took responsibility, while Trump pretends he’s going to sue his accusers.
“I agree with you on Al Franken,” Handler said. “I’m sorry, he’s not a predator. Everybody who’s met him knows that’s not true. He made a mistake. He’s not a predator.”
Maher then challenged this afternoon’s cable news wisdom that Franken should resign, decrying a culture that doesn’t know “the difference between zero tolerance and maximum punishment.”
At which point panelist Rebecca Traister, a writer for New York Magazine and author of All the Single Ladies, took the mic, metaphorically speaking, and dropped it, all in one long, breath-free and beautifully worded speech. Carl Bernstein, environmental activist Bill McKibben and author Max Brooks were also on the show, but Traister deserves all of the last words here:
“To focus on what the punishment is going to be,” she said about the harassers, “is on some level an easier conversation to have, because then we get to fight about it. ‘Should he resign?’ – and then we get to go to our partisan battle stations.
“(That’s easier) than actually looking at the more difficult conversation, which is about the whole culture, a culture that empowers white men to abuse their power in a million ways, from the villainous predators to the fact that there is a sense of humor that we all understand in this country, that if a woman is asleep it’s funny to grab her t*ts. And that a man can gain power and stature and a place in the public sphere by profiting from that comedy.
“That doesn’t make him the same as Harvey Weinstein, but it’s not about him. It’s about reckoning with the fact that we make that culture, we participate in that culture, it’s our good politicians, it’s our friends, it’s our husbands, and it’s ourselves. That is a harder conversation to have and it’s the one we should be having about this moment, not ‘Should he resign…”
Franken’s was proven. And he admitted it. Trump and Moore’s were accusation, none proven and mostly full of holes. But according to Maher, somehow, Franken gets a pass. ??
Hum........Trump talks about it, but people like Spacey, Weinstein, Clinton, and Franken actually do it
Sewage, like water, seeks its own level.
Rockrr: Don’t Lump Donald Trump with Bill Maher Al Franken, Clinton, Weinstein, & Spacey
Everyone who’s ever met Al Franken knows he is a narcissistic a hole. Including me.
And Maher is calling Franken unattractive?? My nickname for Maher is The ugliest man in the world, inside and out.
And Maher once told an audience that before he went on the air each time, he masturbated.
Where are all these Trump accusers? He was a handsome billionaire player. Lots of people at parties hit on women. I doubt he was doing any more than hitting on women in social situations. He was not j***ing off in front of people or touching them in work situations. Nor was Trump groping them while they were out cold.
If your accuser is lying, you call her a liar.
“Is the accuser always holy now?” Arthur Miller, The Crucible.
Don’t watch him. Have better uses for my time.
Just a matter of time before someone accuses Maher of sexual assault.
Well, there you go. Orders from the Great Oz. LOL
One does not know for sure, of course, but his two icky abuses toward an unaware and then unsuspecting Ms. Tweeden do speak to Franken's character (lack of, in this case).
Maher was also a massive defender of Bill Clinton too.
If he was defending on the grounds of male defense (as he, himself, is also a predator by definition with many trips to the playboy club) this be one thing.
But his defense is only political.
That’s the tale.
“And if you joke around for most of the week, you can really have fun on the weekends!”
“Franken’s was proven. And he admitted it.”
So was Bill Clinton’s, once he could absolutely no longer credible deny it. Yet Dems defending him like she-wolves defend their cubs. Only now that they see some political advantages to it are they taking the first baby steps to throwing both him and Hillary under the bus.
This implosion of the Dem Party is the most entertainment I’ve had in 30 years of observing and participating in politics. And make no mistake. In spite of all their bluster they are imploding.
The only thing that could possibly save them is what laughingly passes for the leadership of the Republican Party.
L
If there’s anybody I’d like to see getting accused of anything, it’s Maher! Worthless POS, that guy!
“Maher is the last person who should be speaking about treating women with respect.”
You may not realize just how right you are about that. Seen it firsthand. The guy is a genuine POS.
Mock groping? B.S.you stupid idiots, that is a sexual assault
on a defenseless female. Lock him up!
“Maher is the last person who should be speaking about treating women with respect.”
Maher is just jealous. With his schnozz, he couldn’t get close enough to Leann Tweeden to either kiss her or cop a feel. What a worthless POS!
I wonder how many women, little boys, and chickens, Maher has molested ...
No surpise coming from a fellow molester/harrasser - Maher has also been accused of same
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