This Week in Washington Sexual Misdeeds

Post-Weinstein sexual-misconduct revelations took some wildly ironic turns in politics this week, as Democratic Senator Al Franken was exposed as a molester even as his party had a Bible-avowing Alabama Republican Senate candidate on the ropes for dating teenage girls when he was in his 30s. Logical consistency was strained in part because, just before the Franken revelations, some on the left had begun, at long last, to condemn Bill Clinton's sexual transgressions over the decades, including while in the White House. Yet after the Franken news, important Democratic colleagues seemed less than adamant about the junior Minnesota senator's resignation immediately. Rather, the matter appears headed to an opaque Senate committee with a reputation for inaction and toothlessness as Capitol Hill tries to rein in congressional libidos and faces a storm of criticism over decades of secret, taxpayer-funded hush-money payments to accusers.