What happened to believing women when they speak out against powerful male accusers? On Thursday, evidence broke of a 2006 incident in which Democrat Al Franken groped and forcibly kissed TV and radio personality Leeaan Tweeden. Photographic proof backs up her claim.

Yet, MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt described the now-Senator's predatory behavior this way: “[Franken] took a picture, which his office now says was of a joke, that showed him potentially — not actually groping — but mock-groping her while she was asleep.”

In the noon hour, Hunt repeated her mild description. This time, she didn't cite the Franken staff and made it her own: “Then she also published a picture that was given to her of her asleep with Senator Franken mock-groping her.” This isn’t how Tweeden described the unwanted attention. She didn’t offer qualifiers such as “mock-groping” or “not actually groping”:

It wasn’t until I was back in the US and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one: I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep. I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?

Doesn’t Tweeden have a right to be believed on her own terms and not have a journalist downgrade her claims against a liberal, Democratic senator?

Later on MSNBC, host Andrea Mitchell described what Franken did as “groping” and didn’t qualify it.

A transcript of the two comments is below.