Comedian Bill Maher tweeted a photo in which he appeared to grab the chest of actor Bob Saget, a reenactment of the now-infamous photo of disgraced Democrat Al Franken appearing to grope the breast of radio host Leeann Tweeden.
“These New Years Hawaii trips are getting weird — Saget, forgive me!” Maher captioned his tweet, which included an image of the HBO late-night host holding his hands over Saget’s chest while the seemingly unwitting comic slept.
While many of Maher’s 10 million-plus Twitter followers found the photo amusing, several users condemned the Real Time host and slammed him for making light of sexual misconduct.
“Jokes about sexual misconduct are: easy, not funny, offensive,” one user said to Maher.
“Starting off the new year in an especially offensive and insensitive way, aren’t we Bill?” another user asked.
Tweeden published a photo last November of Franken appearing to grab her breast during a two week USO Tour in 2006. Franken apologized, twice, for groping Tweeden and called for a Senate ethics probe into his behavior.
While Tweeden said in an appearance on CNN that she “gladly accepts” Franken’s apology, scores of Democratic lawmakers had already begun urging the former Saturday Night Live star to resign.
Indeed, several women eventually came forward all of them accusing Franken of some form of sexual misconduct. Last month, journalist Tina Dupuy became the eighth woman to accuse Franken of sexual misconduct, writing in The Atlantic that he groped her in 2009 at a Media Matters party during Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Franken resigned from the Senate on Tuesday, after months of allegations and pressure to step down from several of his Democratic colleagues. He took to Twitter and applauded his successor, former Minnesota lieutenant governor Tina Smith, who was promptly sworn in on Wednesday.
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