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Did Al Franken’s fellow Senate Democrats judge him too quickly and harshly?

Jane Mayer has written a deeply reported piece in the current New Yorker arguing strongly (if implicitly) that the answer is yes. And the case against Franken — for sexual harassment — looks weaker once Mayer has finished examining it. Still, this isn’t an easy case to evaluate, and I encourage you to read the piece.

Here were my main takeaways:

Franken’s original accuser, Leeann Tweeden, is not very credible. She has told demonstrable falsehoods and as a conservative radio host and friend of Sean Hannity’s, she had a political motive for damaging Franken. This much is clear: Franken and Tweeden appeared in a ribald skit together, and Franken posed in an inappropriate picture referring to the skit. Many of the other things Tweeden has said about the tour, including her description of the skit, don’t seem to be true.

Franken had a pattern of touching women in ways that made them feel uncomfortable (such as kissing them on the mouth as a social greeting). Not all the allegations are clear cut. Taken together, though, they suggest that Franken behaved inappropriately.

The Senate shouldn’t have rushed to judgment. Mayer quotes seven different Democrats in the Senate at the time who now regret pushing for Franken’s resignation. And I agree: The fair response would have been a hearing — without delay — to air the allegations against him, as both he and Tweeden favored. A hearing could have helped clarify whether his behavior was merely inappropriate or closer to predatory. Either way, he may have had to resign, because serving in Congress is a privilege not a right, but the complexities of his case would have come out much sooner.

Wherever you stand on his case, I think it is worth thinking through. As the country finally begins to grapple with sexual harassment in a serious way, there are no doubt going to be other hard cases, too.

[Listen to “The Argument” podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.]