Originally published at: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein dies at at age 90 | Boing Boing
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I appreciate her for being a trailblazer in a male-dominated world. She stood up against a lot of crap I can’t even imagine, and did so with grace.
And I don’t have to say anything else.
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At least her suffering is at an end. Shame on those who told her to keep working through this horrible disease to the detriment of us all, as if she still had anything to prove about herself.
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Was that all on them though?
I suspect she always had enough going on upstairs to make her own obstinate decisions not to retire.
And it’s kinda strange at best that such a charge gets leveled so much more often at a woman like her, than at a man like McConnell.
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You never know with someone who has dementia, but by all accounts she was pretty far gone in the last couple of years. Either way, you don’t tell someone with that condition at any stage that things will go on as normal – especially if they’re determined and stubborn by nature. My sense is that a bunch of people (e.g. staffers) hitched their wagons to hers and wanted to keep it rolling, and a bunch of others (e.g. other elderly colleagues) were in denial, while the media danced around the open secret with polite euphemisms. None of them were doing her or her already impressive legacy any favours.
McConnell should also retire from the Senate due to his own condition. In contrast to Feinstein, I’d welcome that development without a hint of regret over what might have otherwise been.
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I think it diminishes Dianne Feinstein to assume she would have retired willingly if not for some kind of Machiavellian scheming by her staff to keep her in office. By all accounts, that is where she wanted to be.
If anything news reports show the opposite of the situation you describe because her staff announced her planned retirement only to be contradicted by the senator herself:
Dianne Feinstein Contradicts Her Own Retirement Announcement.
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Had she resigned, and now that she has died, the Senate will not be able to move forward with any judicial appointments. The Republicans will not allow anyone to take her seat on the committee.
This is 100% why she didn’t pass away in peace.
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By all accounts, she had some form of dementia. “Willingly” (ETA: and “agency”) takes on a different meaning under those circumstances.
This illness does not diminish her legacy or accomplishments in the slightest.
A lot of people with Alzheimer’s want to keep driving, and understandably so. Still, there’s a reason that one of the first things a physician does after a diagnosis is to call the DMV.
Especially not the woman of colour that Newsom has promised to appoint in the interim.
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Dude… please don’t deny a woman her own agency, even in death.
She stayed in office as long as she did because she wanted to; period.
That she (and many other septuagenarians in the House and Senate who are far past their prime) should have retired long ago is beside the point.
Rest in Peace
*sighs
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What I had read was that the Republicans had the power to block a temporary replacement for Feinstein on that committee when she was absent, and there was a big stink about that back in April. But now that she’s gone I believe that, once Newsom appoints a replacement Senator, the Democratic majority in the Senate does have the ability to move forward with filling that seat and doing judicial appointments.
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Are you suggesting that her fellow Democrats should have moved for her impeachment and removal?
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No, I’m suggesting that her friends, family, and colleagues should have strongly encouraged her to retire, secure in the knowledge that she’d done more good in her lifetime than most people could ever hope to accomplish. This is not about her age, it’s about her having a serious disease that affects cognition.
Suppose you had a relative who was a truck driver, a great one who loved their work but who you knew had dementia? Would you tell them “it’s cool, keep on driving”?
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Even if they did (and some probably did) the CHOICE WAS HERS.
Stop and reread your own comments, yo; try to see how they sound.
You’re making it seem like a grown ass woman (a White one with money and power) had no control over her own career choices.
It’s not a good look.
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She had dementia, and by the between-the-lines accounts of those who knew her it had advanced significantly in the last two years. If it’s a bad look to say that someone with that condition is severely impaired in terms of agency and making good choices, I’ll just have to stick with it and leave it at that.
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Bad look is STILL bad.
IMO most of Congress and the Senate is too fucking old (and too White and too male) but none of that is germane to my point here;
Your comments here unintentionally reek of both ingrained sexism and ageism.
Might be wise, my friend.
That thing we often criticize obtuse folks for doing? You’re doing it too; right now.
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I made no reference, implied or otherwise, to her gender or her age being the issue here. I was talking about her illness, period-endstop.
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