The Kohn-Franken cage match will be totally awesome

(The original version of this article included several references to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, which the author can only attribute to sleep deprivation or oncoming dementia. Those references have been removed with apologies for the confusion.)

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The pressure is growing for Senator Al Franken to… do the right thing?

It’s not often that I find myself in the position of needing to sing the praises of CNN contributor Sally Kohn, but she’s certainly demonstrating some admirable consistency this week. After a second woman came forward and accused Franken of groping her, Kohn joined a growing chorus of voices on the left calling for him to step down.

As our colleague Lauretta Brown wrote at Townhall last night, Kohn is far from the only one.

Credo, a progressive organizing group with 5 million members, and Indivisible, a network of 6,000 grassroots groups, both called for Franken’s resignation Monday…

The left-wing activist group Justice Democrats called for Franken to resign following Tweeden’s initial accusations emphasizing that “it would be profoundly hypocritical for Democrats to stand by Franken in this moment. We can’t tolerate harassment or assault.”

When you’ve lost Sally Kohn things have truly taken a turn for the worse. But where does Franken go from here? John Sexton looked at his most recent response on Sunday, when Franken was saying that he had no plans to resign but was certainly going to take this opportunity to do a lot of “reflecting” on his behavior.

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We should be clear that the most recent accusation against Franken is from a more recent time. The groping incident in question took place at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010. (Franken was elected in 2008.) So assuming the allegation is accurate, that could indicate an ongoing pattern of behavior rather than a one-time lapse in judgment (as some have described it) when he posed for a picture while groping a woman’s breasts as she slept. Of course, if Franken refused to resign over this, there’s likely not much that would happen to him beyond a possible censure from the Senate Ethics Committee.

Of course, while the incident with Leeann Tweeden was documented on film, the latest accusation remains exactly that… an accusation. If Franken maintains his innocence, there’s probably not much the Democrats can do about it. But he may want to shelve any thoughts of running for President, assuming he ever seriously entertained the idea.

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