LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO
Dianne Feinstein will she end up handing over? Even in a country that is not into youth, at least in the political-media sphere, the age of the senator from California begins to weigh. At 87, she is the dean of the Senate. Admittedly, by little: Democrat is only three months older than Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who only brief exposure to the coronavirus kept his 8,928 from passinge vote in mid-November. But she is the oldest, in an institution that does not stand out for its avant-garde. Out of a hundred senators, half are over 65 years old. Seven have passed 80 years.
The United States Senate is no exception. The presidential election exposed what the journalist from Politico Timothy Noah calls ” gerontocracy “. On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden, 78, will become the oldest president in history on the day he takes office. He will succeed Donald Trump, who held the record before him. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is 80; Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, 78. An areopagus that looks like “Politburo” of the Brezhnev era, quips Timothy Noah.
Pandemic effect? The time seems to lend itself to retirement. On December 18, columnist Mark Shields, 83, a Washington legend, hung up after thirty-three years on the screens. Judy Woodruff, 74, the presenter of the PBS newspaper where he officiated – religiously – every Friday night, shed a tear, but promised he would return for specials.
Nothing like that from Senator Feinstein. Retirement ? “I’ll let you know when there’s something new”, she told CNN. But some, obviously, think for her. On December 10, highly regarded investigative journalist Jane Mayer published in the New Yorker an embarrassing story, informed by testimonies – on condition of anonymity – from colleagues and parliamentary assistants. According to them, Dianne Feinstein is plagued by repeated cognitive absences. Sometimes she asks her helpers to brief her on a subject when they have barely done so.
A figure who marked his time
Dianne Feinstein’s blackouts came to light during Jack Dorsey’s hearing before the Judicial Affairs Committee on November 17. The senator asked the CEO of Twitter the same question, in the exact same terms, two minutes apart, without realizing it. The rehearsal amused the social networks a lot but less the young Turkish people of the Democratic Party, who took advantage of the incident to repeat that the hour of retirement has come.
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