A former Obama staffer called for Senator Dianne Feinstein to resign during a broadcast of his podcast, “Pod Save America.” Jon Lovett said that Feinstein (D-CA) “should no longer be in the Senate”. She should be encouraged to resign.

“Dianne Feinstein should no longer be in the Senate. She should resign, and more people should be calling on her to resign,” Lovett said.

There’s no nuance in that, is there? It looks like Lovett is joining a growing number of Democrats calling for Feinstein to resign since she has been home recovering from shingles. Her recent hospitalization for shingles and her time at home now is holding up work that is of interest to him, like judicial nominations. There is no indication of when or if she will be back to work in person in the Senate. Lovett also points a finger at her staff, as though they control their boss’s schedule for when she will leave office.

“There’s been a lot of reporting about Dianne Feinstein no longer being fit to serve in the Senate representing the biggest state in this country. She’s currently out for shingles. That is sad. That is obviously not her fault, but because she is not in the Judiciary Committee, Durbin has said that it has made it basically impossible to move a lot of these lower court nominees to the Senate for a vote,” Lovett said. “Which means that Dianne Feinstein who should not be in the Senate is now preventing us from being able to confirm judges.”

“And as sad as it is to sort of see someone who’s had an incredibly storied and long career and has done a lot of good for this state, I think what the people around Dianne Feinstein are doing, being part of this farce of having a lack of a senator at such an important job is really wrong,” Lovett added.

She announced in February that she will not seek re-election in 2024 but she plans to serve out her full term. Even before she came down with shingles, there were rumblings from other Democrats that she was slipping with age – she is now 89 years old – and perhaps it was time for her to go ahead and retire.

A problem now for Democrats with such a closely divided Senate is that when a full roster of Senators are not available for votes, Democrats have to work with Republicans to secure enough votes to pass whatever it is they are working on. The situation is a little bit better now that Senator Fetterman is returning to work.

Speaking of Fetterman, did Lovett call for him to resign from his senate seat? I must have missed it if he did. Democrats were adamant that Fetterman can serve despite his handicaps from his stroke and his clinical depression. When he was hospitalized for an extended stay for treatment, we were told he was working from the hospital and everything was fine. We were told he even co-sponsored a bill from the hospital. Why are you asking about his ability to do his job?

Sounds sexist, eh?

Pretty sexist of Lovett to call on the female senator to resign, but not Fetterman. The hypocrisy of progressives when it comes to sexism is out of control! https://t.co/O69lfjSgbH

— e-beth (@ebeth360) April 11, 2023

She must be past her prime.

On Tuesday I read an article in Jezebel about the fact that it’s time for Feinstein to resign because she is holding up judicial confirmations. The Biden nominees aren’t moving out of the Senate Judicial Committee to the Senate floor for votes. I’m not sad about that but Democrats are. They are losing valuable time, especially if Republicans get their stuff together and take back the Senate in 2024. According to the article, she has missed 60 votes of the 82 taken in 2023.

Feinstein, who was hospitalized in early March for shingles and has remained in her San Francisco home since March 7, has missed 60 votes of the 82 taken in the Senate in 2023, per the San Francisco Chronicle. And as the Senate, which has been on recess since March 31, prepares to return on April 17, Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on Monday that Feinstein’s absence from the Senate—and the Judiciary Committee specifically—will impede Democrats’ ability to confirm judicial nominees.

“I can’t consider nominees in these circumstances, because a tie vote is a losing vote in committee,” Durbin told CNN. He continued, “We still have some nominees left on the calendar that we can work on. … But we have more in the wings that we would like to process through the committee.”

Them’s the breaks, Dick.

The women at Jezebel are particularly concerned about judicial confirmations after the Texas judge ruled against the FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone last Friday.

So, it looks to be a coordinated effort of Democrats in the media to oust Dianne Feinstein. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence but I don’t believe in coincidences. They want her out and someone in to cast votes for Team Biden. It’s not personal, it’s politics. They need liberal judges to rule in favor of abortion. It’s always all about abortion with Democrats. Feinstein’s downfall really accelerated in the eyes of Democrats when she began to work well with Lindsey Graham on the Judicial Committee.

Questions about Feinstein’s fitness to serve have followed her for years now, particularly since an unsettling moment in 2020 when she embraced Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and seemed supportive of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, prompting questions of whether she even knew what was going on. Shortly after, Feinstein was removed from her position as Chair of the Judiciary Committee—but a report from the time claimed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had to twice inform Feinstein of her removal because she forgot the first time. Last year, a separate San Francisco Chronicle report citing unnamed senators and Senate staffers claimed Feinstein’s memory was “rapidly deteriorating,” and that she’s “mentally unfit” to continue serving. And back in February, Feinstein and her team struggled to even coordinate on something as simple as the timing of her announcement that she isn’t seeking reelection.

Feinstein represents 40 million Americans and serves on four Senate committees. It seems we can both thank her for her service and decades of blazing a path for women in politics and recognize that her remaining in the Senate past her ability to do her job isn’t exactly a feminist victory—not when women and pregnant people stand to be harmed the most by the stalled confirmation of liberal judges.

Good luck, Senator. You’ll need it against this bunch.