Known both-siderist Chuck Todd couldn't wait to delve into the salacious 'news' distractions, which are orchestrated to help the average American forget about Mueller time.
The NBC brass has to maintain the ruse that both sides are equally culpable and equally terrible. You know, like Judge Roy Moore and Senator Al Franken, right? When mentioned without distinction, people will believe the worst about the Democrats, and we all know whose fault that is, don't we, Chuck?
Todd prodded Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) over the resignation of the Minnesota senator after other accusers came forward with alleged sexual harassment. Franken denied the validity of the accusations. Obviously, his denial was to no avail.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I think in terms of Al Franken, what you have -- and Al Franken is a friend of mine and, I think, has been a very good senator for Minnesota -- but what you have is a situation where Senator Franken acknowledged wrongdoing, on several occasions inappropriate behavior, and he felt that the appropriate thing to do was to offer his resignation. I think what the absurdity is --
CHUCK TODD: He didn’t think -- I’ll be honest with you, Senator -- he didn’t sound like somebody who thought it was appropriate. He sounded like somebody who was being forced to resign. He wasn’t being forced?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I don’t know that you know what was in Al Franken’s mind. But the point is, the point is, that we have the absurdity now of a "president" of the United States who basically says on a tape that everybody in this country has seen his pride, in a sense, in assaulting women. And he has not apologized for that and he has not offered his resignation. So I think that’s the absurdity. But I think in terms of what Gingrich was saying, there needs to be a due process. There needs to be a differentiation between somebody who pats somebody on the backside and somebody who commits terrible acts against women. And furthermore, what we need in this country and this whole debate, discussion is bringing this up, we need a cultural revolution. Because it’s not just famous people who are harassing women. There are people all over this country: women who are working in restaurants who are being harassed every single day. We need to change the culture of how we treat women on the job.
Yes, of course we need to change the culture of how we treat women. Fair enough. But why not give Franken a chance? Why jump on that bandwagon? Sanders claims that Al Franken was a friend of his, but he was one of the Democratic senators who called for Franken to resign, despite the fact that the ethics investigation Franken requested had not yet begun. Raising the white flag of surrender is not the same as exercising good moral judgment. The two are not mutually exclusive.
If it helps, at least we know that the Democratic senators are holding themselves to a higher standard, but, as SNL Weekend Update's Michael Che explains here, this is why Democrats lose.
Any chance we can hold our values in high esteem without simply handing these immoral monsters every branch of government? I sure hope so.
