Throwing Out the Smartest Guy in Government

We all have to get through these times – times when the entire government is without mooring, where the President lacks stability and sanity, and where political leaders on both sides appear to have surrendered responsibility and intelligence.

We all have to endure a fractured polity, due in the main to indifference, to over indulgence, and most importantly to being blind to the needs of the majority working class.

And, we all have to understand, at the same time, that men have enjoyed far too much freedom of words and actions at the expense of women for centuries – and most importantly – for the last decades when women joined men in the workplace as “equals” but not as equals.

In this world, today, many men of sleaze are falling by the wayside. And, that is a good thing. We do not need them to right our shaky world.

But, in this world as well, a few men of intelligence, wit and good judgment in the main are also falling when we need them and need to forgive minor transgressions.

Al Franken is such a person – a smart ass with a stupid sense of male privilege who is also one of the very few smart and savvy people in the government. We need to believe again in redemption and we need (as my grandfather use to say) not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Franken is one of only a very few people (male and female) with intelligence and a sense of balance in government. Take him out, and we are left with little more than a wasteland.

It is unlikely that he will survive the slash and burn going on now. But we are the poorer for this group-think and overreaction. He had bad judgment and he was the child of the 20^th Century. But, he is smart enough to change. We aren’t going to make the distinction, nor give him a chance.