I have a hard time agreeing that somebody should be disqualified for the rest of her of his life due to an inappropriate attempt at "joke". Censured? Criticized? Yes. But let's be honest here, 90% of the population would be disqualified under such strict standards (and I'm not talking just about sexual context).
Now, crossing certain barriers is thoroughly a diffrent matter. Still, I can't endorse somebody having to resign as soon as the accusation is being raised. And it's not whether we believe the accuser or not (and, in the vast majority of such cases, accusations are indeed turning out to be true). It's about upholding "innocent until proven guilty" principle. And if we want to apply this principle to other cases, then we can't make an exception here. And this applies to Roy F-king Moore too, or at least applied until the whole dome broke.
All I can say it doesn't look good for Franken and I won't shed any tears for him if he'll have to step down in disgrace after all.
I agree.
If this is the only incident, I don't think he should step down. But if, as usually happens, more accusations come out, he probably should quietly withdraw from politics.