Seriously, identifying the skeevy old congressmen that have freaked out Gillibrand, Mitchell and their ilk would be for the public benefit.
After Gillibrand revealed probably just a smidge of the unwanted sexual and weight-related attention she received during an interview for her new book, Off The Sidelines, Mitchell joined the anonymous sketchy dude party. From Talking Points Memo:
“We all had our stories of whom you’d not get in an elevator with and whom you’d protect your young female interns from,” Mitchell told her guests, Bloomberg editor Jeanne Cummings and WaPo political reporter Chris Cillizza.
“Some of those former senators were actually expelled,” Mitchell added, a possible reference to Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR), who resigned in 1995 before he could be expelled for serial sexual misconduct.
It sounds crazy but not so much when you remember that some of our great country’s congressmen thought (unfortunate) current Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was just joshing when he put that curly pubic hair on her soda can back in the early 1990s. That isn’t too far off from the Politico reporter John Bresnahan who tweeted he didn’t believe Gillibrand’s claims.
Incidents like Hill’s and Gillibrand’s are why we all need feminism. When a seasoned reporter like Mitchell intimates that she’s not boarding an elevator because she doesn’t want to be cornered by some slob, that’s why we need feminism.
Any office where people can’t do their fucking jobs without some old creep squeezing their waist and saying they like ‘em chubby — outside of a strip club and, hell, even there patrons can’t touch. Security! — is a threat to offices everywhere. That said, we at Jezebel humbly request the names of the congressmen we should steer clear of as a matter of public safety.