Some months back we were debating the morality and the smarts of calling for Senator Al Franken to resign over multiple harassment incidents. Now we have a sitting Senator who just sat through Ethics Committee investigation that concluded:
“Your assistance to Dr. Melgen under these circumstances demonstrated poor judgment, and it risked undermining the public’s confidence in the Senate,” the letter reads. “As such, your actions reflected discredit upon the Senate.”
To refresh your memory, Senator Menendez was tried on various corruption charges in a trial that ended in a mistrial in November. The DOJ decided to drop the charges in January. Now we don’t know if Menendez really did anything criminal, but the Ethics Committee certainly found a good deal of evidence of poor judgment.
So how come Democrats are not asking Menendez to resign?
Because Kirstin Gillibrand can’t make political hay off of it?
Gillibrand wasn’t the only Dem calling for Franken to resign.
Why? The usual cowardice and fear of something or someone new. This mentality is typical for “leadership” positions and not just in politics. At the end of the day they always lean towards the same old, same old. Menendez is way beyond the damaged goods stage, instead of doing it now they’ll wait until it’s a crises with the seat in danger.
There was a lot of self-righteous back patting about not tolerating bad behavior in the Party. Which I agree with, BTW. And there is no reason to hang on to Menendez — his state is blue, he isn’t killing it in fundraising and he isn’t vital to leadership. It just looks like we will eat our own only when there is a camera running.