There’s one thing I got the impression Al Franken would never actually do following his resignation speech last week: actually resign.
Just think about the content of his resignation speech. He never acknowledged any misconduct on his part, never apologized to any of the women who accused him, and appeared bewildered that he’d have to resign in the first place. In fact, more time was spent attacking President Donald Trump in that resignation speech than acknowledging any wrongdoing (which I guess isn’t all that impressive, given the zero seconds where he acknowledged any wrongdoing).
He only announced that he’d be resigning “in coming weeks,” which can mean one of a few things. First, it could be just that Democrats need to keep Franken in the Senate until the end of the year for his vote. Alternatively, Democrats could’ve been using Franken as a sacrificial lamb, hoping that Republicans would then purge one of their own accused of sexual harassment (such as Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate). I only speculate such a strategic outing given the coordination in which the majority of Senate Democrats all came out to call for Franken’s resignation. Since that’s not happening, perhaps Franken won’t be hitting the road either.
And lastly, it could be that Franken himself never planned on actually leaving on the first place.
According to the Daily Caller,
Franken has yet to offer any more specificity about when he’s going to follow through in resigning.
Franken’s office did not return multiple requests for comment on the subject.Following Franken’s resignation speech, liberal voices began questioning whether he should actually resign. Immediately after the speech, Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin told Politico he disagreed with Franken’s decision.
“You know, I just felt the process should’ve proceeded. I thought that Al should’ve been able to go through the process and, in the process, he would’ve been able to make the statement he had to make today, [that] he was forced to make, without resigning,” Manchin said.
Richard Painter, vice president of left-wing watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), called on Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton to leverage Franken’s pending resignation into forcing Alabama Republicans to disavow GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, and re-appoint Franken to his own seat if Moore wins.
And that’s not all. New York Times columnist Zephyr Teachout wrote a piece this morning titled, “I’m Not Convinced Franken Should Quit.”
“I also believe in zero tolerance. And yet, a lot of women I know — myself included — were left with a sense that something went wrong last week with the effective ouster of Al Franken from the United States Senate,” she wrote.
Even Newt Gingrich questioned the need for a resignation, calling the accusations against him a “lynch mob,” He elaborated that he thinks it should be the voters of Minnesota that decide his fate.
Perhaps the reason Franken has yet to put a date on his retirement because there is none.
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