Talk:Al Franken

Resignation section

I am new to this page, and seeing all the edit warring, I hesitated to make an edit without discussing it here first. At the end of the "Allegation of misconduct" section, is it necessary to still include the sentence, "Franken announced that he would make a statement on December 7."? Yes, it was news at the time (yesterday), but it has been trumped by his actual resignation statement. I propose we strike that sentence, as it is now old news and outdated, and move the sentence preceding it to the "Senate resignation" section, so that it reads:

Senate resignation

On December 6, more than two dozen Democratic Senators called on Franken to resign. Franken announced the following day that he would be resigning his Senate seat "in the coming weeks".[130] Kerdooskis (talk) 19:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree. That he announced a statement isn't notable, the statement is. I removed it. – Muboshgu (talk) 05:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I just added a few small objective details to the misconduct section. Then I saw all this discussion. The things I inserted were dates, sources, and pertinent quotes from the accusers. It's nothing controversial, so I hope you'll keep the changes. These are things that I wanted to find out when I came here, but I had to go looking for them on my own. So I did the type of minimal editing that I normally do.Ramseyman (talk) 02:19, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I came back and found that for the last two accusers, the objective details that I had added were inadvertently deleted when that portion of the section was reorganized by someone. I have briefly re-entered the identities of the accusers and the gist of their accusations, without going into any details or arguments. In light of all the wrangling here about whether the allegations are "sexual" or not, and "assault" or not, it seems quite important to have at least this basic data included in the article, for factual reference. I hope everyone can agree on at least that much. Ramseyman (talk) 00:49, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Second shoe to drop

The article seems weird at this point. It has this sentence in the lede: "After Franken was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women in November 2017, he announced his intention to resign from the Senate on December 7th, 2017." And then literally not another word about the issue in the rest of the page. A reader not familiar with recent events will be left wondering when the second shoe is going to drop.Ebw343 (talk) 04:48, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

It's all in the "Allegations of misconduct and Senate resignation" section. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:50, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, my bad, I searched the page for the word "sex" thinking that "sexual" would be used. Sorry.Ebw343 (talk) 04:54, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

We're not allowed to use the word "sexual" to describe his misconduct. He's a Democrat. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Apologetics and minimization of alleged sexual harassment

I was surprised to see the lengths that Wikipedia writers/editors have gone to make Franken's forced kissing and groping of multiple women seem like a series of innocent misunderstandings. They were not, and all of the women involved were clear on this point. These were adults, professionals and mature women, and in the view of the women affected, there was precious little room for misinterpretation of Franken's actions. Most of the more pointed comments from the women themselves have been excised from this article, and the section regarding his forced kissing and groping does not accurately reflect the seriousness of the conduct. Frankly, the way the section currently reads, it's unclear why any of the women complained in the first place, why Franken apologized, why the senate ethics committee is investigating, and why he has resigned. 2601:CB:8001:280E:E573:8A02:1AA9:AE67 (talk) 13:01, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

If so, that reflects what is known about these events. SPECIFICO talk 14:12, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

IMO it describes the alleged actions in enough detail for readers to draw their own conclusions, and if they feel they need more context or details, they can always follow the links. — Narsil (talk) 16:39, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Just realized the section header was BLP-noncompliant. Fixed. SPECIFICO talk 17:13, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Should his listing as a Senator be removed or changed?

He resigned, so, he's now a private citizen. Thus, the caption under his photo should be changed. Skaizun (talk) 04:42, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

It has his dates in office. It doesn't imply that he's currently there. JTRH (talk) 13:22, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

It's fairly normal to continue referring to someone as their title after they leave office - President Bush, for example, rather than ex-President Bush. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Deletion of external links

Pvmoutside, why did you delete two external links (one of them a late Wayback scrape of Franken's own website)? -- Hoary (talk) 14:33, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

They don't work....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:59, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

How did they not work, Pvmoutside? ("404" messages from the Internet Archive, perhaps?) One link worked for me when I added it (I didn't check the other at that time); both worked for me just minutes before I asked the question above; both worked for me just minutes ago. I therefore propose adding

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20180224162528/https://www.alfranken.com/ Franken's website] (alfranken.com) as archived by the [[Wayback Machine]] on February 24 2018

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180106013805/https://www.franken.senate.gov/ Franken's U.S. Senate website] as archived by the Wayback Machine on January 6 2018

(The latter link is, I think, a slight improvement over the second one that you deleted.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

usually former senators have their campaign pages and official Senate pages deleted unless they run again. The first page is not his official page, but a PAC page. If you insist on adding it, please identify it as such. The second page I deleted was a wayback calendar with no mention of Franken. Your proposed 2nd page change is better, but the page appears as if he is an active Senator, which he is not. In my opinion, both pages would be better not added, but if you insist, the replacement set is better.....Pvmoutside (talk) 00:49, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I've readded them, in slightly reworded form. I believe that we can trust readers of an encyclopedia to realize that what's said in an page archived at Wayback may no longer be true (particularly when many regular, "live" pages say things that are out of date). I don't rate myself as particularly intelligent (and indeed others have rated me as unusually stupid; see my user page for miscellaneous psychiatric evaluations). However, I'd feel that even my limited intelligence were being insulted if given a link described as something like Franken's U.S. Senate website as archived by the Wayback Machine on January 6 2018: does not reflect changes to his status since that time and indeed may not have been up to date even when archived. -- Hoary (talk) 01:53, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

althougb i'd rather see them not there, the link descriptions are better and something i can live with.....Pvmoutside (talk)

Mayer's reporting

An IP editor removed text quoted from the Jane Mayer New Yorker article in sources and disparaged her reporting. I note that her Wikipedia article notes nine awards conferred and that she was a finalist for a tenth. Activist (talk) 18:52, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring over sexual misconduct accusations??

It seems like there may be some back and forth edit warring over the inclusion of the words inhuman (not really a word) and rightly in the second paragraph of the introduction on the sexual misconduct accusation against sen. franken. Thankfully both words have been removed and just want to a blurb about why I think they shouldn't be included, inhuman is a weird way to frame sexual misconduct as it adds another unnecessary descriptor onto action that are already wrong and rightly assumes that fraken has been convicted of what is being alleged, which he has not. like it or not all of the accusations right now are just that and wikipedia shouldn't take a stand on whether they are right or not. Epluribusunumyall (talk) 03:29, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

"pretending to grope (or possibly actually groping)"

Gandydancer, I feel like this line which I had added[1] accurately reflects the sum of the RS. "Pretending to grope" alone[2] is not what most RS say, but the full quote covers everything.

• "A photo shows Al Franken touching Leeann Tweeden’s chest. Many media reports still say he ‘allegedly’ groped her." Washington Post[3]

• She had, unlike so many other victims of harassment, hard evidence. This was not a case of her word against his, he said against she said; Tweeden had, via that photo of Franken groping and grinning, the receipts. "Al Franken, That Photo, and Trusting the Women", Atlantic[4] Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:20, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Per the Post source you offer, that source also says that that is not the opinion of most news reports. Re the Atlantic, you can as easily find another Atlantic article saying that his hands were "hovering over her". Let's not get into an argument in this Franken bio about whether or not his hands actually touched her or not. Unless you want to pull in numerous sources that give their own version of what happened. Gandydancer (talk) 12:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gandydancer:, yes, we can find many sources saying many things. I'm trying to find language that accurately sums it up with proper weight. From the WaPo source: "Merrill Perlman, a former New York Times copy desk director, explained why she would advise against a flat-out declaration that Franken groped Tweeden:

Since it's a still [image], we don't know what he did before or after. So the safest thing is to say he touched her chest. We can't assume that Franken squeezed her chest, or moved his hands in a groping movement, or touched her in this one movement and withdrew his hands. "Groping" implies action. The safest and most accurate course is to say that the photo clearly shows him touching her chest with his hands cupped (while mugging for the camera, maybe). That's descriptive of the photo and avoids any journalistic assumption of what the action was.

Many sources say he "touched her chest". The Mayer story says, without quotes, Tweeden "said that it wasn’t until she returned home and received a CD of images from the tour photographer that she saw the image of Franken pretending to grope her while she slept." Maybe we could say he was photographed pretending to grope her breasts while appearing to touch her chest. What do you think? Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:35, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

According to the skit done on the show he said he was a doctor and would need to "examine" her breasts. It was funny and unfortunately Franken continued with his having fun while she slept, and she did not find it to be funny at all. She felt she was being mocked. She deserved an apology and Franken admitted he was wrong and apologized. Again, more sources than not say he held his hands over her breasts rather than to say he placed them on her breasts. Gandydancer (talk) 13:49, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Is that from a source or your opinion? We would need to evaluate whether more sources said he held his hands over her breasts or actually touched her chest. I'm thinking: On the flight back from the tour, Franken was also photographed pretending to grope her breasts by reaching out to touch her chest while she... It sounds like we may be at an impasse, so we may need a third opinion. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:56, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I think reaching out to touch her chest is perfect because it doesn't necessarily mean that he touched her, but would be accurate if he did. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:10, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I have undone the recent edits, which appear to go against the NPOV version that was hashed out by many editors over an extended period of time and work. Recent edits also suppress text that reflected Democratic congressional regret RE: Sen. Gillebrand initiative. SPECIFICO talk 14:21, 8 September 2020 (UTC)