There was a game I used to play with George W. Bush’s press secretary Dana Perino when I covered the White House. It was called “Imagine if a Republican had…” and you could fill in anything at the end.
So let’s play it once again. Imagine if an 89-year-old Republican senator disappeared from the Senate for three months over poor health, holding up crucial business in the nation’s top deliberative body amid a torrent of crises.
In that scenario, Democrats and their minions in the mainstream media would be demanding an immediate resignation.
But that’s not the case with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). At one point, she had missed 70% of the Senate’s votes with a case of shingles, and when she returned, she was in a wheelchair and declared she’d never been gone at all.
One Democrat, though, is taking a bold stance to call for the elderly senator to step aside — and it happens to be a California Democrat.
“I have a lot of respect for Senator Feinstein and I am wishing her the best in her return and recovery,” Rep. Ro Khanna wrote in an email to SFGATE. “That being said, I stand by my call for her to resign.”
After Feinstein returned last week, Khanna told POLITICO, “I stand by what I said at the time, because three months is a long time to be absent without any clarity,” though added, “But given where we are, I’m hopeful. I’m giving the situation the benefit of the doubt and hopeful that she’ll be able to fulfill her duty, that’s what I care about.”
Khanna’s call comes after Feinstein, who has been in politics for 53 years, was asked by reporters about her lengthy absence and how her colleagues reacted upon her return.
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“No, I haven’t been gone,” she said, Slate reported. “You should follow the — I haven’t been gone, I’ve been working.”
One reporter asked whether she had been working from home.
“No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said. “Please, you either know or don’t know.”
Over the last couple of years, there have been more and more stories about how Feinstein is often confused. One member of Congress who met with Feinstein last year said the once feisty senator had clearly lost a step — or seven.
“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” the lawmaker told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Feinstein won’t resign, of course, and the MSM won’t call for that, either. So just get used to feeble, addled-brained senators running the country.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.