Newsflash: Men Are Jerks

(Not all of you, maybe, but most of you, at least sometimes.)

We may be reaching a danger zone where the #metoo and #believewomen movements could collapse into a morass of bad faith and overzealousness. Now we’re hearing from a woman who claimed Al Franken grabbed her behind while they were posing for a photo (the photo doesn’t show his hands) and NYT White House correspondent Glenn Thrush has been suspended because he is accused of behaving boorishly toward and making a clumsy pass at a woman colleague in a bar.

If true, this is not okay. However, it’s not in Harvey Weinstein territory. I fear we’re about to be hit by a wave of increasingly picayune charges aimed at famous men, many of which will be unprovable, that will dilute the movement. And these also will have the effect of inoculating more serious offenders. People will just stop listening, or believing.

As for Thrush and Franken — let the punishment fit the crime. Bring back stocks, I say. Make an example of them. Let them be held up to public humiliation. Let us pelt them with tomatoes and call them names for awhile. Once they are thoroughly chastised, send them back to work with a warning that future bad behavior will not be tolerated.

In other words, send a message to all the men who haven’t been accused yet. It might improve their behavior.

Update: Charlie Rose.