Jeff Sessions tacitly endorses sexual assault
Let’s go back in time a few months – three months, to be exact: back to October 10 last year, when Jeff Sessions said grabbing a woman “by the pussy” isn’t sexual assault. I wonder if he thinks lynching is murder.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a top Donald Trump surrogate, said on Sunday that even if the GOP nominee actually grabbed a woman “by the pussy,” as he bragged about in a leaked tape from 2005, that behavior would not amount to sexual assault.
“I don’t characterize that as sexual assault,” Sessions told The Weekly Standard in the spin room after Sunday night’s presidential debate. “I think that’s a stretch. I don’t know what he meant.”
“So if you grab a woman by the genitals, that’s not sexual assault?” the reporter asked Sessions.
“I don’t know,” the senator replied. “It’s not clear that he — how that would occur.”
Oh yes it is. It’s very clear. It’s called “groping”; it’s called “copping a feel”; it’s called grabbing her by the pussy. How it would occur is the man would shove his hand onto the woman’s crotch. There’s nothing mysterious about it.
It’s pretty disquieting to learn that the prospective Attorney General of the US thinks sexual assault is not sexual assault.
The Huffington Post updated the next day to report that Sessions said he was misunderstood.
“The Weekly Standard’s characterization of comments I made following Sunday’s Presidential debate is completely inaccurate,” the senator said in a statement provided to HuffPost. “My hesitation was based solely on confusion of the contents of the 2005 tape and the hypothetical posed by the reporter, which was asked in a chaotic post-debate environment.”
“I regret that it resulted in an inaccurate article that misrepresented my views,” Sessions’ statement continued. “Of course it is crystal clear that assault is unacceptable. I would never intentionally suggest otherwise.”
But he would consent to work in the administration of a man who brags of committing sexual assault.
How contemptible.
Hey, if you want any more than tacit, you may have to wait for a second Trump term.
So why would people willingly work for a complete idiot as a boss? There are several possibilities I can think of.
1)A spirit of public service. (Included in this would be the idea of serving in order to protect America from Trump, though I see this more as a choice for civil servants already on the payroll rather than new hires).
2)The lure of power. (This would also cover those who hope to influence and manipulate, to be a “power behind the throne”).
3)Agreement with the complete idiot’s ideas.
4)You’re a member of the complete idiot’s family
Probably not an exhaustive list. Of these options I think #2 is much more likely for most of the cabinet picks, who are responding to the chum in the water.
Not Bruce, as a corollary to #1, the same thing that many people use as an excuse for working for a corrupt employer, remaining in a corrupt church, etc:
“That way I can change it from the inside”
This rarely happens, as the person who is saying that only thinks about changing it from the inside when people ask them why they stay with that company, church, etc.
Well everything thing about him is horrifying… I remember seeing mention of this on either FiveThirtyEight or HuffPo back then…