By Colleen O’Connor
All your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day for which we waited; (From the Bible: Lamentations 2:16)
But, they have not swallowed her up. Not Senator Diane Feinstein, not Nancy Pelosi, her neighbor of 30 years, and not Pelosi’s eldest caregiving daughter, Nancy Corinne Prowda.
For months, the GOP, many self-important, ineffectual politicians and op/ed columnists have railed against Senator Feinstein, demanding her resignation and heaping scorn on those who protected, sheltered, and cared for a woman who is elderly, recently recovering from shingles and its maladies.
Yes, amid the world’s menaces, maniacs, and madmen, somehow Diane Feinstein poses the greatest risk. Read the national press. Any “Christian” compassion visible? Hardly. The coverage is overwhelmingly cruel.
The drumbeat of national broadcasts, newspaper headlines, cover stories and op/ed pieces demanding she resign forthwith is heartless. A bit of sexism? A double standard?
According to Feinstein’s biographer, Jerry Roberts:
“Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has certainly made that point, and I find it hard to disagree with. Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was absent for months after being diagnosed with brain cancer, and I don’t recall anyone saying, “Oh, Ted Kennedy should resign.” And there’s lot of other examples as well.
Who among these “teeth gnashers” has ever cared for an aging parent, a dying sibling, a wounded friend? Surely, none of them. Their callousness feeds on itself.
Beyond hypocrisy. Beyond lunacy, if any Democrat thinks the Republican Senate will ever replace Feinstein’s vacancy with another Democrat. The Democrats’ slim majority depends on her tie-breaking votes.
And what a “WOW” vote difference her vote holds.
According to Time Magazine,
“The reason why Feinstein holds all this power is tied to her seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats have an 11-to-10 advantage over Republicans on the panel, giving them zero margin for error in advancing President Joe Biden’s nominees for lifetime appointments to federal courts, including the Supreme Court. A tied 10-to-10 vote, at least under the current rules, leaves those nominees potentially stuck in limbo. Whenever she’s absent, Feinstein leaves Democrats on the committee with an insufficient 10 votes.”
The confirmation of Civil rights lawyer Nancy Abudu to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (where she will be the first Black woman to sit on the Atlanta-based court), is just one example.
She waited for almost a year for Feinstein’s return to win the appointment.
The Senate confirmed Abudu, a graduate of Columbia University and Tulane Law School,49-47 last Thursday. Opposed by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin alongside GOP critics of Abudu’s work with the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she served as deputy legal director and interim director for strategic litigation, he nomination needed Feinstein’s vote to succeed.
Feinstein delivered a history-making “WOW” win. A one-vote margin. And there are others.
Yet, the press continues to “gnass their teeth.”
Here then, is Los Angeles Times reporter’s leading and loaded question to Feinstein’s biographer.
“Will this sad ending tarnish Feinstein’s legacy? Should it?”
The biographer’s response:
“I don’t think it should. Look at all the things she accomplished politically as well as culturally. Look at the generations of women politicians that have come out of the Bay Area — the vice president of the United States; the former speaker of the House; Sen. Barbara Boxer; women members of Congress. They all followed in Dianne’s footsteps.
Her work in the Senate — desert protection, exposing the government use of torture to fight terrorism, the 10-year assault weapons ban — speaks for itself. The role she played on complicated California issues: water, immigration, many things.
So, kudos to Nancy Pelosi and her daughter for staying close, being supportive and helping Senator Feinstein continue to make history.
The “teeth gnashers” failed to swallow her up.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Colleen, DiFi thought she was in Washington the whole time instead of recuperating at home.
From the LA Times –
In a brief exchange with reporters after voting, she mentioned a problem with her leg but on the balance of things said she was feeling better. Then another reporter asked about the well wishes she’d received from her Senate colleagues since her return last week.
“What have I heard about what?” she asked.
“About your return,” the reporter replied.
“I haven’t been gone,” she said. “You should … I haven’t been gone. I’ve been working.”
“You’ve been working from home is what you’re saying?”
“No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting. Please, either know or don’t know.”
How is this good for anyone? Californians deserve full representation in the Senate and staying in her seat only erodes her legacy. It’s a terrible situation and we should support someone who’s up to the duty (which clearly she is not) to be in the Senate. Also, it’s clear the Pelosi family is sticking with DiFi so that Schiff can replace her in 2024 because if she were to retire Newsom said he’s select a Black woman, which would obviously lock out the Congressmember.
Men voting with illnesses and injuries
In January 1918, five congressmen showed up to the close House vote for women’s suffrage – the Nineteenth Amendment – despite injuries.
“According to Jacqueline Van Voris’s book Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life, Thetus W. Sims of Tennessee came with a broken arm, unset and without anesthetic, Henry A. Barnhart of Indiana was carried in on a stretcher, Robert Crosser of Ohio and James R. Mann of Illinois left the hospital against doctors’ advice, and Fredrick C. Hicks, Jr. of New York was ordered by his dying wife to leave her side in the hospital to vote in favor of the bill.” Passed by 1 vote!
AND:
Senator Clair Engle, a Democrat from California who was suffering from a brain tumor, showed up in June of 1964 to break a filibuster and vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act.
Unable to speak, Engle pointed to his eye to signal “aye.”
No historical perspectives offer any useful comparisons for the current situation with a razor edge Democratic advantage that exists in Congress or justify Feinstein’s reckless and arrogant course of action to remain in office when it’s clear enough she does not know if she’s afoot or on horseback. Another example of Democrats — particularly progressives — handing power to Republicans
“I get it. For those who say, ‘Enough of Newsom making these picks!’ I get it. I’m with you. I understand,” Newsom said. Let the voters decide!
AND now….”Hillary Clinton: Dianne Feinstein Shouldn’t Retire
In an interview with TIME at the Chicago Humanities Festival, Clinton said Feinstein shouldn’t retire because of the “tradeoff” on confirming judges.”
If you believe that an individual senator – who clearly cannot do the job, who is being hidden by her staff, who believes she never left DC when in actuality she recovered back in California – staying in her seat for two more years is more important than judges who will make decisions for the next 30 than you and I have different ideas of what’s important to a democracy.
I’m guessing you thought RBG should have stayed on the court as well, instead of retiring in 2014?