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In reply to the discussion: Kirsten Gillibrand for president [View all]DFW
(54,756 posts)Al and I are not close, but his best friend and I are, and we have discussed the subject at length. The whole thing was a Republican scam, and one of the reasons he didn't react forcefully at first is that he knew better than anyone the "allegations" were total bullshit, and expected his fellow Democrats to be smart enough to see through them as well. It was as if some Republican website had accused him of being JFK's assassin. He knew better than anyone it was total fantasy.
He was totally blindsided by the lack of support, and more than a little depressed by the opportunism behind some of their statements. These were people he considered his staunch political allies, and here they were pretending that a James O'Keefe-style Republican scam actually had some teeth. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the Minnesota governor announced his intended replacement. He then said, to hell with it, if this is the kind of Democrats I was serving with, I don't need this.
It was everybody's loss, Al's, that of the Senate Democrats, and most of all, that of the rest of us Democrats, who were the victim of yet ANOTHER Republican scam that never should have gotten off the ground. Like with all well-spread-around scams, there will always be those who insist on believing them, or parts of them, for the sake of their own convenience. That is unfortunate, but predictable. The raw, cynical opportunism of some of his Democratic detractors, especially those who knew, or had ample opportunity to know, that there was no substance to the so-called allegations--THAT was outright disgusting. I made an exception for Heidi Heitkamp and sent her a substantial contribution because of the courage it must have required for her conscience to win out over electoral expedience to vote against Kavanaugh. But the other Democrats who urged Al to resign haven't gotten a cent from me (I doubt they'll miss it). If a little integrity is too much for me to ask of them, then money is too much for them to ask of me.
Please note, this is my personal view, and since I vote in Texas, I have the privilege of contributing four figures to Beto and Colin Allred, who had nothing to do with the Al Franken purging scandal. I neither ask nor encourage anyone else to follow my example. but I make no bones about how I felt/feel about what was done to him. Not by the Republicans--we expect sewage from them--but by our own side. And not because he's an acquaintance, but because he was the best we had.