Sex scandals are the news item du jour, even pushing Robert Mueller's Russian collusion fantasy to the back pages.  The latest bad boy is Senator Al Franken, grinning in a photograph while groping a female journalist.

The irony is rich.  From Franken's website comes the headline "Fighting for women in Minnesota and across the nation."  One of his top priorities is ensuring that women have "a life free from domestic and sexual violence."  How's that working out, Senator?

The groping senator has a 100-percent rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, illustrating how these organizations really feel about women.  The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network featured Sen. Franken as one of its "Lawmakers Making a Difference."  He sure made a difference in Leeann Tweeden's life.

The Minnesota Coalition against Sexual Assault laud "his outstanding dedication to raising awareness about sexual violence."  That photo certainly raised awareness about Franken's sexual violence.

How inconvenient for Democrats – another one of their own caught abusing women.  Just when they had Roy Moore in their sights, and President Trump on deck.

Rush Limbaugh threw more water on their parade this week by pointing out that "Roy Moore was a Democrat when a lot of this was going on."

Indeed, he was.  He switched his political affiliation to Republican in 1992.  In 1977, the time of the yearbook entry, he was still a Democrat.

Another interesting tidbit is that Roy Moore married his current wife, Kayla Kisor, in 1985.  She was fourteen years his junior.  Therefore, no big surprise that he would also date women younger than himself, meaning a woman in her late teens while he was in his late twenties or early thirties.

For comparison, Ted Kennedy was 22 years older than his wife, Victoria.  President Trump is 24 years older than his wife, Melania.  Bill Clinton is 27 years older than his non-wife Monica Lewinsky.

Not only did Roy Moore change political parties, but so did Donald Trump – at least five times since the 1980s, according to voting records.  No surprise.  Trump is not a partisan and likely got frustrated with whatever party he belonged to, much as many current Republican Party members have switched to independent after years of GOP ineptitude.

In 2001, Trump became a Democrat, returning to the GOP eight years later. Perhaps he saw George W. Bush acting more like a Democrat than a Republican and hopped on the bandwagon.

How interesting that Trump's big sex scandal – not groping or raping, but trash-talking – occurred in 2005, when he was a Democrat.  This was the time of the Billy Bush Access Hollywood conversation.  Trump talked the talk, while Weinstein, Franken, Spacey, and others walked the walk.

Both Moore and Trump were Democrats when behaving badly, with the caveat that Moore has denied his allegations, while Trump offered a mea culpa.  Regardless, they were members of the Democratic Party at the time – the party of women's rights.

One possible explanation is that both were following their party leaders of the time – Ted Kennedy in the case of Moore and Bill Clinton in the case of Trump.  The "Lion of the Senate" and the 42nd president of the United States.  These are sexual predators, yet they are heroes of the Democratic Party, revered by feminists and women's rights groups.

These were role models for up-and-coming Democrats, which both Roy Moore and Donald Trump were at the time.  Neither Kennedy nor Clinton was held to account for his abuse of women – manslaughter, rape, harassment, and abuse.

Both got a pass, from their political party and from the media, paving the way for such behavior in others based on how their party leaders were treated.

Too bad for the Democrats.  Their two biggest targets, Moore and Trump, were Democrats at the time of their indiscretions.  How inconvenient.

Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS, is a Denver-based physician and writer.  Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.