The earnest and always hopeful Democratic Party seems to have sacrificed the career of Senator Al Franken in the hope that The American People will recognize the purity of its motives and will draw a contrast between its virtues and the sins of Republicans such as Donald Trump and Roy Moore.
It is to laugh.
Remember how The American People recognized the solid Midwestern honesty and integrity of Senator George McGovern and voted out Tricky Dick Nixon in 1972? Or made the distinction between war hero John Kerry and draft evader George W. Bush and awarded the presidency to the Democrat in 2004? Or last year, when they recoiled from the vulgar, sexist ignoramus from 5th Avenue and instead bestowed their favor on the former senator and Secretary of State from Chappaqua?
Some years ago I wrote a book called "The Inextinguishable Symphony" about my parents and their experiences playing with an all-Jewish performing arts organization in Nazi Germany. The organization's artistic director was an earnest neurologist named Kurt Singer, who believed deeply in the civilizing power of the arts. He really thought that by putting on first-rate productions of plays by Shakespeare and operas by Verdi and symphonies by Mahler (works by German artists were off-limits to the Jews, of course), he could convince the Nazis of the inherent worth of their Jewish citizens and that these artists would be allowed to live in peace.
Kurt Singer would starve to death in the Terezin concentration camp in the winter of 1944.