I'm topped by Calitics to the fact that the The NYT, in what's otherwise a fairly typical and predictable profile, calls Sen. Dianne Feinstein a "liberal lioness."
Wow. Where has that reporter been all these years?
Feinstein has never been a "liberal" anything. Yeah, she's good on gun control (having seen first-hand what happens when a a dangerous guy gets a gun and starts shooting), and she's always been pro-choice. But that's about it.
As mayor of San Francisco, she was, for all intents and purposes, a Republican. She handed the city over to developers and once vetoed a resolution declaring "reproductive rights day" because she thought it would be "too divisive." She never once attended a Pride parade.
She was highly critical of Gavin Newsom when he first broke ground on same-sex marriage. She has been, at best, a moderate on economic issues, and was always untrustworthy on labor stuff. She was never good on the Bush wars.
I've had my disagreements with Sen. Barbara Boxer, but there's no doubt that she's been a progressive voice. Not so her colleague.
The Times clearly wanted to make the story look interesting by contrasting Feinstein's current stand on spying with her more left-leaning record. But there's nothing to contrast. She's always been a moderate-to-conservative politician. No story here.
There's nothing moderate about her. She has so many proto-fascist skeletons rattling in her closet, she doesn't dare open it (like Pelosi). But it's fascinating to watch her as she rails on about how Snowden supposedly violated his oath to defend the Constitution (she cares a lot about oaths). And claims he's a traitor. I assume she's taken a similar oath with regard to the Constitution. So what the hell has she been doing to defend us from all this spying? It's not like she doesn't know that this was going on. She's the damned chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for goodness sake. So who's the traitor?
ReplyDeleteOf course I believe Feinstein is a "liberal lioness." Then again, if you get me to drink half a dozen margaritas, I'd believe that Mayor Ed Lee does care about making San Francisco housing affordable for low- to middle-income residents.
ReplyDeleteI look back fondly, Tim, at all those years of doing battle with the mayor in the pages of the Guardian -- exposing her as a duplicitous DINO and trying to keep her corporate and political whoring on or near the surface. Even her stand on gun control -- sponsoring a ban on "assault weapons" -- is nothing more than hollow grandstanding with no substantial meaning in the issue. In fact, to shift the discourse away from handguns, where -- IMHO -- it truly belongs, she may have done more harm than good overall. But that would just be par for the Feinstein course. (Robin Steele)
ReplyDelete