It’s gone far enough. What started as a necessary mass-rejection of sexual harassment and assault is sliding into absurdity and irrelevance. A backlash is looming against the very people the spontaneous battle against sexual villainy was meant to help: powerless women and men.
The fight is being waged not with force, but with the rather bland Internet movement, #MeToo. The battle by hashtag conflates genuine sex crimes with mere childish behavior — blending the Harvey Weinsteins and Kevin Spaceys with the Al Frankens and George H.W. Bushes.
How long before we stop taking victims seriously?
Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” writer and performer and now staunchly liberal senator from Minnesota, has been tossed into the guillotine without a trial. And while I reject his leftist politics — even more so his inability to be funny — I don’t think confusing childish, even lewd, behavior with clear, intimate violations helps anyone. Rather, it threatens to make accusers, many of them women, appear unserious. Or “hysterical,’’ to use a term commonly wielded against humans bearing XX