Tag Archives: Dianne Feinstein

Point of View Columns

When Age is More Than Just a Number

Perhaps it was the fact that the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1960) made up such a huge portion of the American population that the United States conveyed the energy and optimism of youth to the rest of the world. As the Baby Boomers went from adolescence to young adulthood and then to maturity, that energy and optimism continued to characterize America.

With the elections of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both in their forties, America still seemed to embrace some of that youthful energy and optimism. And then….and then the Baby Boomers started getting older and older, and at least in government and politics, the Baby Boomers haven’t figured out how to make a graceful exit and pass the baton of leadership to younger women and men who have literally waited their turn, sometimes for decades.

Of course, this must be seen within the context of President Biden announcing that he will be running for re-election in 2024. Joe Biden is 80 years old. Were he to win in 2024 he would be 82 years of age two weeks after the election. And looking forward he would be 86 years old at the end of his second term.

There are two very important perspectives to keep in mind. Assuming that he continues to defy the actuarial prognoses for octogenarians and stays in somewhat good health, it is hard to have full confidence that President Biden will be able to sustain the high energy levels needed in a 24-7-365 job for four years.

Nevertheless, as you are reading this, it is a very good bet that barring some health intervention, President Biden will be the 2024 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. It is also a very good bet that should he be victorious in November 2024, every misstep, every halting step and every sign – no matter how faint – that Father Time is about to make it clear that immortality is left only to saints, gods and goddesses will be “breaking news” for four years.

It is important to keep in mind that Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2024, will be 77 years of age on Election Day. And should he be president he would be 81 years in the final year of his presidency.

The question that should be asked by any American with an interest in the present and future of this country is how did the leadership of this nation become the province of septuagenarians and octogenarians? How did a man born during World War II and another man who was born one year after World War II become the best prospects for the presidency?

Further, how is it possible that all of the women and men between 40 and 65 with political ambition fade into the scenery? And, whatever happened to the image of energy and optimism that this country was supposed to be presenting to the rest of the world.

With all due respect to the senior citizens of America, it is hard to believe that men in their 70’s and 80’s represent the best leadership opportunities for this country. And, it should be noted that it is not only the presidency where this dissonant reality becomes apparent.

In the United States Senate there are 54 senators over the age of 65. In the United States. And it turns out that 21 of them are between the age of 70 and 80. And, parenthetically, California Senator Dianne Feinstein is 89.

In corporate America it is rare for the CEO of a Fortune 500 country to stay in office past the age of 65. The main reason for this age limit is not due to the fact that the female and male CEO’s suddenly become ineffective at 65. The reason is that the mandatory retirement age keeps a flow of younger executives coming into executive positions, bringing with them new energy, new ideas and new perspectives.

The reality of the United States government being in the hands of a gerontocracy with no real interest in grooming and guiding new leaders is a problem that is not going to get any better as long as seniority is the only coin of the realm in the Senate and the House of Representatives. And while this country continues along this hoary path of gerontocracy, the leadership of many countries is going in the opposite direction. Consider the age of these heads of state:

  • Russia – Putin – (a virtual youngster by American standards) – 70
  • United Kingdom – Sunak – 42
  • France – Macron – 45
  • China – Xi -69

The numbers don’t lie. The leadership of the world is trending younger at exactly the time that Americans are embracing the dominance of gerontocracy. And, as is the case in corporate America, it is important to continue a flow of younger women and men into senior public service instead of waiting their turn until the gerontocracy ages out or dies off.

There is probably not much that can be done about the prospects of a Biden-Trump faceoff next year.

But is definitely not too late to begin to demand a place for younger Americans in leadership.

After all, given the current state of affairs in America it isn’t as if aging Baby Boomers have done a great job of it.

Standard
Point of View Columns

Trying Times When Tomorrow Seems the Only Hope

On many days the news seems written by denizens of an insane asylum who never seem to run out of material and by not surprising, never fail to surprise. Looking back over the past few days proves the point. Consider the following….

Kansas City Blues

The good citizens of Kansas City, Missouri love their Kansas City Chiefs football team, even while knowingly and openly denigrating the culture of the indigenous people who lived their long before Europeans knew of this land. And, certainly the KC. fans, in loving their team, are keenly aware of the fact that more than half the players are Black.

So, one of the good white citizens of Kansas City while loving their team that stars multiple Black players, when he saw a young (16-year-old) Black man ring his doorbell, he shot him twice, once in the head. In doing so, the shooter never bothered to ask/find out that Ralph Yarl, looking to pick up his younger siblings, had come to the wrong address.

To make matters even worse, young Mr. Yarl had to stumble to not one, not two but three houses before anyone called for help.

The takeaway:

  1. Incredibly it appears that Ralph Yarl will recover from his physical injuries. How long he will suffer from PTSD is anybody’s guess.
  2. While anything is possible, it is hard to believe that a 16-year-old young white man would be shot by a Black homeowner just for ringing his doorbell.
  3. Finally, those neighbors who closed their doors and hearts to young Mr. Yarl, it’s a good bet that they still love their Kansas City Chiefs.

Pride Always Goes Before the Fall

There are several reports that, sometime in the second year of his second term, President Barack Obama had a private luncheon with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and gently inquired as to her considering resigning in the best interest of the causes for which she had dedicated her life. While a delicate matter, it was an important matter, as later events would reveal.

At the time of that fateful luncheon, Justice Ginsburg was in her 80’s had survived multiple cancer illnesses, and was a walking medical miracle. Further, at that point in time President Obama would have welcomed her suggestion of a successor to keep her legacy alive, both them knowing the existential importance of a liberal majority on the Court.

Justice Ginsburg deferred, presumable wanting to wait for President Hillary Clinton to replace her in a few years. And we all know how that worked out.

Justice Antonin Scalia died and Senator Mitch McConnell refused to allow President Obama to name a replacement even though the seat on the Court remained vacant for well over a year – virtually unprecedented in American history.

There never was a President Hillary Clinton. And President Donald Trump kept one of the few promises that he has ever kept in his entire life of duplicity and diversion by appointing anti-abortion judges all throughout the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court.

Justice Ginsburg lived long enough to see a Trump designed conservative, anti-abortion majority and she hoped to survive until Joe Biden became president so that he could name her successor.

Justice Ginsburg almost made it.

But Justice Ginsburg didn’t, and now hundreds of millions of American women will spend decades trying to avoid the tyranny of the Court that Trump Built had her legacy is being dismantled decision by decision.

Her pride went before the fall of her legacy.

Which leads to the situation involving Senator Dianne Feinstein, now 89, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her health, clearly failing, has kept her from sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee for months.

And during these several months, President Biden’s federal judiciary nominees are piling up because Senator Feinstein is not present to vote. And while she has indicated that she would go along with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to name a temporary replacement, it’s a pretty good bet that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will block that move – remember Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland?

The only viable solution is for Senator Feinstein to retire/resign, and while California Gavin Newsome appoints a temporary replacement (California Senatorial election is in November), Senator Schumer can appoint a replacement to the Judiciary Committee.

It should be clear to anyone paying attention how important the federal judiciary has become as it has been weaponized by the right wing, and especially during the Trump administration during which hundreds of incredibly conservative judges will be making decisions about the lives of Americans for decades (remember that federal judges serve for life, and the majority of the judges appointed by Trump are in their thirties and early to mid-forties).

Senator Feinstein knows this better than anyone. Her legacy is beyond approach and deserving of praise. Yet she is dooming herself (and this nation) to the fate that she will share with Justice Ginsburg.

Given an opportunity to literally save this country, she is letting her pride go before we all fall with her.

And that is sad and outrageous.

Someone has to say it.

The United States vs. Haiti – The Battle that Never Ends

CNN broadcast a recent documentary program showing the horrors and terrors endured by refugees coming from South America up through Central America with the hope of gaining refuge, asylum and a home in the United States. One interesting note is that many of the men, women and children are not from South America. Many of the men, women and children are from…Haiti.

One might ask what would motivate these Haitians to leave a Caribbean island to sail to South America and trek through jungles, mountain passes, rivers and of course, gangsters – going thousands of miles on foot? After all, how bad are conditions in Haiti? And why don’t the Haitians do something about their country rather than coming to the United States and become the burden of the American people.

The answer lies in history of Haiti and the history of the United States as the two countries have been intertwined for over two centuries and continues to this very day.

In 1804, the nation of Haiti gained its independence from France, becoming the second independent nation in this hemisphere. Haiti was also the first country to be established as the result of a successful revolt waged by Black people. This bit of news came as a great shock to the American enslavers including then President Thomas Jefferson.

There was a very real fear that a successful Black revolt was contagious and that this freedom virus would spread to the millions of enslaved Black men, women and children in the United States – men, women and children upon whom the wealth of this nation was based at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The response was to do anything and everything to destabilize Haiti, and that has been the general policy of the United States, even to the extent of occupying that country during the early part of the twentieth century. And, working in collaboration with France which is still holding the multibillion debt over Haiti and reparations for France’s loss of its enslaved assets.

And while there is no doubt that there has been more than a share of dysfunction for which the wealthier (and often lighter) Haitians have responsibility, the United States cannot deny its responsibility for the current state of affairs in that country.

And for the response of the United States to entail working more closely with Mexico to close the border the Haitians is simply cruel. And ironic.

Ironic because during this past week President Biden was in Ireland where he extolled the long and rich relationship between the United States and Ireland.

Perhaps he could have remembered that the long and rich relationship truly began with millions of poor, starving and unskilled Irish men, women and children fleeing the oppression and famine imposed on them by England. And that the children of those poor, starving and unskilled Irish men, women and children became presidents, generals, corporate executives and university presidents.

Would that this same hand of hope and hospitality could be offered to Haitian men, women and children who are reaching out to America just now.

American amnesia is certainly not color blind.

Standard
Point of View Columns

Amber Light Warning

In the earliest stages of any driver education course students are taught to heed red lights (stop), green lights (go) and amber lights (caution). The current turmoil on this planet has triggered a series of amber lights flashing over Iraq, the Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and many other locations. The cautious approach to this cascade of crises would seem to be the only reasonable course of action to follow. So why is President Obama being chastised, criticized and castigated for being “too cautious”.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has been a longtime supporter of President Obama, and her comments to the effect that he has been “too cautious” in handling the multiple cauldrons of war and conflict were greeted with much interest. The Teapublicans who represent the permanent critics of Anything Obama pointed to Senator Feinstein’s comments as proof positive that their own criticism is not partisan but reflective of the ineffectiveness of the Obama Administration.

Some further thought on the matter might lead to a different conclusion. After all, there are (too) many American political leaders and commentators who seem to live in some mythical halcyon past when the United States could impose some kind of Pax Americana on the rest of the planet. From the Monroe Doctrine to the Berlin Airlift to the Korean War, there is supposed to have been a time, or so the thinking seems to indicate, when the United States could summon the will to impose peace and send despots scurrying back to their lairs.

Of course the Monroe Doctrine presumed an imperial American perspective on all of the countries in the Americas and one could ask the people of Haiti, Cuba, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic how that has worked out. The Berlin Airlift was absolutely humanitarian in nature and, while it was quite dramatic, the literal and virtual Berlin Wall did not fall for another four decades.

The Korean War is perhaps the best example of what President Obama absolutely should not do. Keep in mind that although the United States led a multilateral military venture against the Chinese and North Koreans, six decades later – a literal lifetime – American troops are still in Korea with no apparent timetable for their eventual departure.

When critics and commentators call for President Obama to “do something” in the multiple potential war zones around the planet they do not seem to think about the consequences, intended and unintended, of such calls for action. Drones and jet planes raining destruction on ISIS may seem to confront this new barbaric and amorphous threat to world peace. But it is that same barbaric and amorphous organization that can terrorize American journalists in the Middle East or morph into terror and danger in London, New York or Paris.

Committing American troops to any of these war zones without a clear strategy and an absolute exit plan and timetable is pure madness. And who will commit the lives and limbs of their son or daughter to this global meat grinder under such circumstances? The silence to this question, if asked in the halls of Congress or on the television talk shows would be deafening. And yet the war chatter continues.

President Obama has been criticized for honestly stating that the United States does not have a strategy for dealing with ISIS – as if there would be some useful strategy in a computer file at the Pentagon or the NSA – that could possibly anticipate the bleak and bizarre nature of this new organization that has temporarily claimed the spotlight on the world stage. It would seem that these critics continue to believe in the mythical omnipotence of America.

While myths have their place in culture, they have no place in the very real and dangerous world in which we all live today. It is better for this country to be “too cautious” rather than drink the mythic Kool-Aid and plunge headlong into the bloody maw of multiple wars across this planet – without a plan, without a strategy and without a clear set of goals and objectives.

President Obama was elected to serve the people of the United States and not to propagate myths and legends that do nothing to help us make informed and intelligent decisions in the volatile atmosphere in the fall of 2014.

Standard