Page Six Publishes ‘Ridic’ Exclusive Alleging Al Franken Groped Arianna Huffington
Ariana Huffington denies Franken behaved inappropriately in photos of him appearing to grope her https://t.co/7rmgfRIlVI pic.twitter.com/UbIRGTDlpr
— The Hill (@thehill) November 21, 2017
Sen. Al Franken has now been accused by two women of making unwanted sexual advances. These are serious allegations made by serious people against a sitting United States Senator. In other words, now is not the time to be making crap up.
That’s just, however, what Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post did today. The newspaper’s pop culture website, Page Six, published a so-called “exclusive” this morning that alleged that Franken once groped media titan Arianna Huffington, founder of the eponymous Huffington Post. They have photos and everything!
“Franken was clowning around, but it really isn’t funny,” said an anonymous source from the photo shoot. “That’s his tactic, pretend like it’s all a big joke. Arianna was pushing his hands away. He was groping her. There was some fun attached to it, but she wasn’t enjoying it. She definitely told him to stop and pushed him away.”
There’s just one Murdoch-sized problem, the story is fake, and not in the way your racist Uncle will likely speak about the totality of media on Thanksgiving. Their smoking gun? That photo? Completely staged, as Huffington herself has pointed out, bursting the bubble of that anonymous source.
“I think I’m a better judge of how I felt in that satirical photo shoot with Al Franken than the recollections of an anonymous bystander,” she wrote. “I thought the point of this moment was to believe women’s accounts of their own experiences.”
The photo shoot was to advertise a segment that aired in 2000 on Bill Maher’s old show, Politically Incorrect.
Maher admonished the newspaper, calling the story “Low even for you, Post.” He also referred to it as “ridic” and “an insult to any real victims.”
So, good work? In a craven attempt to pile on a political opponent, or just get some clicks, New York Post managed to muddy the idealogical waters, treating actual allegations of sexual assault like a big, fat joke. Way to source, guys.
[image via screenshot]
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