Remember
Al
Franken?
He
was
a
distinguished
United
States
senator.
He
is
funny.
He
is
charming.
No
one
else
in
Congress
could
or
can
excoriate
hypocritical
right-wing
nincompoops
quite
so
effectively.
Then
an
old
photograph
circulated
that
showed
him,
during
his
time
as
a
comedian,
with
a
big
goofy
grin
on
his
face
pretending
to
grope
the
breasts
of
a
Playboy
model
who
was
on
tour
with
him
to
help
entertain
the
troops.
Specifically,
she
was
on
the
tour
to
entertain
the
troops
with
her
good
looks,
which
certainly
doesn’t
mean
she
deserved
to
be
the
butt
of
a
bad
joke
executed
while
she
was
sleeping
in
a
flak
jacket.
After
this,
seven
additional
women
accused
Franken
of
unwanted
touching.
While
no
one
should
touch
anyone
else
in
a
way
that
makes
them
uncomfortable,
none
of
these
were
even
close
to
the
most
heinous
allegations
you’ve
heard,
and
Franken
strongly
denied
any
intent
at
least
to
overstep
personal
boundaries.
Franken
was
a
very
public-facing
lawmaker
who
met
thousands
and
thousands
of
people,
including
me,
meaning
that
if
he
really
was
out
there
trying
to
make
a
grope-fest
of
things,
there
probably
would
have
been
a
lot
more
than
seven
complainants.
Then
36
Democrats
demanded
he
resign.
He
succumbed
to
the
pressure.
We
all
got
a
lackluster
replacement.
The
point
of
this
little
stroll
down
memory
lane
is
that
none
of
this
had
anything
to
do
with
Franken’s
performance
as
a
senator.
Sure,
there
is
a
point
at
which
general
misbehavior
should
lead
to
you
losing
your
job,
like
for
instance
when
you’ve
engaged
in
any
one
of
the
dozens
of
felonies
that
the
current
president
has
been
convicted
of
and/or
charged
with.
But
does
anyone
else
out
there
remember
a
time
when
people
would
occasionally
get
fired
for
being
bad
at
their
jobs
instead
of
for
some
other
judgmental
reason
that
has
nothing
to
do
with
their
job
performance?
Think
about
it.
When
was
the
last
time
you
heard
of
someone
getting
fired
for
actually
being
bad
at
their
job?
Coldplay
kiss
cam
couple:
having
an
affair,
probably
bad
spouses,
potential
conflicts
of
interest,
but
seemingly
doing
fine
at
their
jobs
before
anyone
knew
all
this.
Fed
Governor
Lisa
Cook:
maybe
did
mortgage
fraud.
Sandwich
guy:
threw
a
sandwich
at
an
ICE
agent
like
a
f*cking
hero.
All
the
people
let
go
for
gleefully
posting
about
Charlie
Kirk’s
assassination:
I
mean,
I’m
just
going
to
decline
to
comment
on
that
one.
I
could
go
on
all
day
with
these
examples.
Perhaps
“idiot
loses
job
because
he
was
so
terrible
at
it”
simply
does
not
make
the
headlines,
but
even
in
my
real
life
it’s
hard
to
remember
any
recent
terminations
for
actual
performance-related
reasons.
Way
back
in
the
day,
when
I
worked
at
a
law
firm
that
fired
hapless
associates
on
a
whim
nearly
every
month,
there
was
this
guy
who
got
fired
in
large
part
because
he
wrote
a
memo
of
law
in
which
he
intentionally
left
out
the
most
important
controlling
case
on
the
key
issue,
causing
a
partner
who
didn’t
check
the
work
to
get
yelled
at
and
humiliated
in
open
court
during
oral
arguments.
The
guy
said
he
left
the
most
important
case
imaginable
out
because
it
was
such
a
bad
precedent
for
our
side.
On
days
like
that,
it
could
really
feel
like
going
to
law
school
was
worth
it.
Look,
people
should
be
held
accountable
for
particularly
bad
outside-of-the-workplace
behavior.
There
are
lots
of
systems
in
place
for
holding
people
accountable
for
bad
behavior
that
are
not
employers
showing
them
the
door
in
order
to
impose
some
kind
of
faceless
corporate
moral
judgment
on
everyone.
Al
Franken
should
have
apologized,
and
he
did.
Al
Franken
should
have
faced
ethical
inquiries,
and
he
did.
He
should
not
have
lost
his
job.
He
lost
a
lot.
We,
the
American
people,
lost
even
more.
Little
versions
of
Franken’s
saga
play
themselves
out
in
offices
all
across
America
every
day.
So
many
of
them
are
lose-lose
situations,
just
like
it
was
with
Franken.
Between
everyone’s
family
and
everyone’s
social
media
addictions,
it
seems
to
me
we
all
already
have
plenty
of
people
judging
our
every
decision
at
every
moment
without
employers
needing
to
be
in
on
the
game.
It
would
be
nice
if
we
could
go
back
to
employers
worrying
about
how
good
you
are
at
your
job
and
leaving
the
moral
policing
with
the
almighty
where
it
belongs.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD (affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].