Learning The Wrong Lesson

Al Franken’s election was one of the pleasant surprises of the 2008 election. Franken is turning out to be an excellent senator. He’s already made an impact with his amendment that prohibits the Defense Department from contracts with companies that force rape and assault victims into arbitration – an instance when a lawmaker sees an issue (the case of Jamie Leigh Jones) and decides to do something about it. One thing he probably didn’t anticipate was that protecting rape victims is actually a partisan issue:

Thirty Senate Republicans voted against the amendment, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, liberal commentators and state Democratic Party chairs have been merciless.

Angry letters denouncing Republican senators have appeared in newspapers from Tennessee to Idaho. Unflattering videos of senators trying to explain their votes have gone viral on the Internet, including one of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) swatting away a hand-held video camera held by a liberal blogger questioning his vote against the amendment.

Of course, what did they expect? Here’s the web ad targeting the 30 GOP senators:

Below is the video of a rape victim confronting Senator Vitter on his vote on the Franken amendment:

Yes, it’s a vote that’s hard to defend. So what did the GOP learn from this completely self-inflicted mess?

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment. And several aides said that Republicans are engaged in an internal blame game about why they agreed to a roll-call vote on the measure, rather than a simple voice vote that would have allowed the opposing senators to duck criticism.

Yep, they should have just did a voice vote so that people wouldn’t know who is pro-rape. Disgusting!