Criticisms have come in by the boatload upon the long-serving California Dem returned to the Senate — in a wheelchair — following a lengthy illness.
Originally published by WND News Center. Used with permission.
The 89-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has returned, well, partly returned, to her Senate duties after a months-long absence due to illness that left even Democrats calling for her to quit.
A report from ABC said her return again gave the Democrats a 51-49 majority that had left stalled a long list of issues that Democrats wanted to adopt without any GOP support.
The network report explained she “gingerly emerg[ed] out of a gray sedan with the help of aides who assisted her into a black wheelchair.”
She admitted she still will be on light duty.
However, her return wasn’t the success for which she might have hoped.
In fact, she was accompanied by comments about a “barely reanimated corpse” and suspicions about “elder abuse.”
Dianne Feinstein finally returned to the Hill yesterday looking like a barely reanimated corpse.
We desperately need term limits. pic.twitter.com/3G5teMx04g
— Florida Conservative (@FlaDogLover) May 11, 2023
“Dianne Feinstein finally returned to the Hill yesterday looking like a barely reanimated corpse,” Florida Conservative on Twitter noted. “We desperately need term limits.”
“Elder abuse. Dianne Feinstein should be in a resident care facility, not in a Senate seat. Democrats are so desperate for a majority vote and to approve Biden’s far-left judicial nominees, they called in the frail, blank, and infirm,” another user wrote.
Elder abuse. Dianne Feinstein should be in a resident care facility, not in a Senate seat.
Democrats are so desperate for a majority vote and to approve Biden’s far-left judicial nominees, they called in the frail, blank, and infirm. pic.twitter.com/wpJ4sIItP7
— Tosca Austen (@ToscaAusten) May 10, 2023
Feinstein’s own statement said, “Even though I’ve made significant progress and was able to return to Washington, I’m still experiencing some side effects from the shingles virus. My doctors have advised me to work a lighter schedule as I return to the Senate. I’m hopeful those issues will subside as I continue to recover.”
In the Senate, her extended absence had delayed votes on Joe Biden’s leftist judicial nominees, as Democrats were unable to move those forward without her, or GOP help.
ABC reported, “Some on the party’s left flank, including California Rep. Ro Khanna and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, argued the federal judiciary could be harmed if Feinstein didn’t step down.”
The verdict from the Intelligencer wasn’t quite what could be described as upbeat:
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California returned to the Senate on Wednesday, weeks shy of her 90th birthday. For nearly three months, she has been absent, the result of a serious case of shingles. Even now she can only work part time, she said in a statement released by her office. In photos that must double as proof of life, she looks fragile, stooped over in a wheelchair. That can hardly be how she’d like to be remembered. Yet as her long career in politics draws to a close, the senator is demolishing whatever legacy she’d hoped to leave. She has become a ghoulish spectacle and a warning: The system she represents is in trouble.
This is elder abuse. pic.twitter.com/MS0usa7qbo
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 10, 2023
One commenter was blunt: “Her refusal to resign or retire is pure SELFISHNESS & Illunstrates how tenacious is the LUST for political POWER, PERKS, & the VENERATION that goes with it. Feinstein is ill, frail, in cognitive decline, & 89!”