Earlier this month an explosive report claimed that U.S. Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore, a Republican who managed to defeat an incumbent GOP senator appointed to replace a seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, sexually abused a 14-year-old girl while also pursuing several other teenagers when he was in his early 30s.

No small number of Democrats, eager to shift attention away from the growing number of Democratic Party supporters and donors in Hollywood who have also been accused of multiple instances of sexual abuse, were quick to judge Moore: He should get out of the race, no ifs, ands, or buts, because he was “not fit” to serve in the “august” chamber.

A number of Republicans have since followed suit, demanding that Moore end his Senate bid lest he risks losing in December to a Democrat or lose the seat by expulsion.

Now, suddenly, a prominent Democratic senator, Al Franken of Minnesota, has been accused of sexually harassing and abusing a Los Angeles media personality when she accompanied him and other entertainers on a USO tour to the Middle East in 2006, but clearly, Democratic — and Left-wing media — reaction has been far different. (Related: Sen. Al Franken exposed as sex predator who groped unconscious woman while proudly smiling for sick photo.)

As reported by The National Sentinel, Franken’s accuser, Los Angeles journalist Leeann Tweeden, a morning news anchor for TalkRadio 790 KABC, wrote on the station’s website that Franken forcefully kissed her against her will, while being pictured later groping her breasts through a flak jacket as she slept on the return flight home.

Franken has since apologized to Tweeden, saying in a statement, “I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann,” according to The Daily Caller. “As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”

For her part, Tweeden has since said she accepts Franken’s apology, and that she won’t push the Senate to conduct an ethics investigation or demand that the Minnesota Democrat step down.

What’s more, so far there hasn’t been similar calls for Franken to be expelled from the Senate for conduct unbecoming, either — regardless of whether he issued a mea culpa or not. What’s more, at this point, we don’t know if Tweeden is going to be the only woman to come out against Franken. She even wrote in her initial KABC post that, “I’m telling my story because there may be others.”

And while Franken said he would cooperate with any ethics investigation, it is clear that, throughout the day, Democrats and their allies in the ‘mainstream media’ were treating his allegations much differently than they’ve been treating Moore’s allegations — or the multitude of allegations of sexual misconduct piling up against Hollywood stars, producers and directors.

For example, CNN was running stories about the Franken accusations, but not prominently. The story that got the most prominence throughout much of the day was a story reporting that he had apologized — and it appeared right next to a story about a new accusation about President George H. W. Bush, a Republican, that he groped a woman in 1992.

Meanwhile, MSNBC all but buried the story, focusing instead on the House’s passage of a “regressive tax plan.”

HuffPo did prominently feature a story about how Democratic senators are pushing for an investigation into Franken’s allegations, but only to allegedly show that is “in stark contrast to how their Republican peers have responded to allegations against GOP Alabama Senate nominee Roy Moore.”

The big difference here is that a) Several prominent Republican leaders have distanced themselves from Moore and will not back him, calling for him to drop out of the race; b) The Republican Party’s senatorial committee has cut off funding for his campaign; c) Top GOP leaders in the Senate have threatened to expel him should he win his special election next month; d) Roy Moore is not yet a sitting U.S. senator; and, importantly, e) GOP leaders and senior senators have already said they believe the women who have leveled allegations against Moore — which pretty much negates the need for an ‘investigation.’

Clearly a difference in coverage.

J. D. Heyes is the editor-in-chief of TheNationalSentinel.com. 

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

HuffPo.com

DailyCaller.com