What message does Senator Kirsten Gillibrand think that this is sending to people? “Don’t rock the boat?”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is giving more details, and dropping f-bombs, about her experience with sexist comments she’s received about her weight, saying she couldn’t tell a male colleague “to go f—- himself.”

“At that moment, if I could have just disappeared, I would have. If I could have just melted in tears, I would have. But I had to just sit there and talk to him. And I switched the subject and I didn’t hear another word he said, but I wasn’t in a place where I could tell him to go f—- himself,” Gillibrand told HuffPost Live in an interview posted Monday.

Let’s not pretend this is about comity in the Senate.  Harry Reid ritually sacrificed that concept in 2009 and then flew its skin from the Capitol Dome.  And – relatedly – let’s also not pretend that this story is about a Republican; if it was then Gillibrand would have just said who it was*.  What it is, apparently, is something that only the junior Senator from New York gets to know.

Hard luck on all of her colleagues who have treated her all along with dignity and respect there, huh? Although I’ve had it pointed out to me that it would behoove said Senators who didn’t do anything wrong to come out and say so. Sunlight, as they say, disinfects.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*By the way? If I’m being cynical about Gillibrand’s motivations and it actually was a Republican, my party would quite like to know that; because the sooner you get started on setting up a primary challenge, the easier it is to bring off.