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The political ‘Star of the Week’ is Leeann Tweeden who blew the sexual-assault whistle on former Saturday Night Live funny man Minnesota Sen. Al Franken – a far-left Democrat. She claims Franken “forcibly kissed and fondled” her eleven years ago.
In present day — Tweeden, 44, is a news anchor for KABC Radio out of Los Angeles. She is a former sports commentator, model and television personality who once posed nude for Playboy magazine at 38-years-old. In 2008 she was named among “The Top Hooters Girls of All Time.” Back in December of 2006 she went on a USO tour with Franken, 66, to Kuwait and participated in stage skits to entertain military troops stationed overseas. Since 2002 she went on 16 USO tours mostly to Afghanistan and Iraq, according to Wikipedia. The USO entertainers were transported on military aircraft. It was during one of those flights that a smiling Franken took a photograph of him touching Tweeden’s breasts while she slept.
On Thursday, Tweeden released this photo and went public about her past experiences with Franken. She appeared in numerous TV news interviews on mainstream media on Thursday in Los Angeles and again Friday in New York City on ABC’s Good Morning America. She comes across as sincere and 100-percent believable.

Tweeden said she was motivated to come forward due to the ongoing rash of sexual-misconduct allegations being lodged against the rich and powerful in Washington, Hollywood and in the ongoing Alabama U.S. Senate race. Her brave frankness in her interviews was astonishing and — backed up with that photo — the impact has brought Franken to his knees with embarrassment while offering apologies to Tweeden. Franken was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008, two years after his encounter with Tweeden. But congressional leaders in Washington — from both political parties — are not buying Franken’s apologies and they are calling for a full-blown ethics investigation into Franken’s past with Tweeden and other women including Melanie Morgan, a San Francisco Bay-area talk-show host who came forward with stalking allegations after Tweeden, according to The Mercury News, a Bay-area newspaper. Franken does not face reelection until 2020.

Tweeden had the right tone to go along with her statements to the media. She was not calling for Franken to step down saying that was up to the voters of Minnesota. She was stepping forward as an example to other women not to tolerate sexual harassment, assault or rape and to come forward in “real time” — not years later. After 2006 she said she was scared to come forward for fear it would hurt her career so she remained tight-lipped until late last week.

“But that was then, this is now. I’m no longer afraid,” Tweeden said in a TV interview. “I want the days of silence to be over forever.”
Feeling the heat, Franken issued a second statement on Friday saying men need to take a good look at themselves about their respect or disrespect of women.

“Over the last few months, all of us — including and especially men who respect women — have been forced to take a good, hard look at our own actions and think (perhaps, shamefully, for the first time) about how those actions have affected women,” Franken said. “For instance, that picture. I don’t know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn’t matter. There’s no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn’t funny. It’s completely inappropriate. It’s obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it — women who have had similar experiences in their own lives, women who fear having those experiences, women who look up to me, women who have counted on me.”

Franken, who is old enough to be Tweeden’s father, is finding out the hard way that it is totally wrong to abuse any woman no matter how hot they are, no matter if they did pose for Playboy or anything thing else in their past or present. Wrong is wrong and no means no — no matter how you rationalize it. Women are not ‘objects.’ It takes two to tango but by mutual invitation only with love and respect.
During the USO tour in question Tweeden said she was appalled by Franken’s attempts to kiss her during skit rehearsals for the USO show. The more we hear about Franken’s past the creepier and foolish he gets.
“He said to me, ‘We need to rehearse the kiss.’ I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL. … We don’t need to rehearse the kiss’,” she said. “He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable.” However she reluctantly agreed. Franken “came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth. I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time … I felt disgusted and violated.”
After hearing Tweeden’s heartfelt account and reading Franken’s after-the-fact apologies and seeing proof in that ugly photo – it’s easy for just about anyone to be repulsed by this turn of soap-opera-like events in Washington involving a sitting United States Senator.
P.S. Now former President Bill Clinton’s well-documented, extra-marital escapades with women – while president and before — are coming under closer scrutiny. While governor, Arkansas press didn’t name Clinton ‘Slick Willie’ for nothing.

About the Author Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.