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Jello’s Biafra? CQ reports that there may be some changes afoot in the chairmanship of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
Depending on how the Senate’s chairmanship shuffle unfolds, John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), might give up the intelligence gavel to take the helm at the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. If that happens, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is likely to chair the intelligence panel, Senate aides say.
Rockefeller never truly wanted the gavel in the first place. I did a profile of him in 2003, and I learned that he felt in over his head on all the intelligence-related controversies about Iraq, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. As the years went on, he found more of his footing. But he’s remained something of a squish, acquiescing to a baseless GOP charge that Joe Wilson only took his fateful trip to Africa because his wife at the CIA wanted a fanciful junket for her husband; believing that Dick Cheney never pressured the agency to cook its WMD and terrorism analysis to support the Iraq invasion; or supporting the gutting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this year.
It’s no wonder that progressives call him Jello Jay. And if he ends up moving aside for Feinstein, an imperfect but more reliable voice for oversight and civil liberties, it would seem like Rockefeller and progressives would consider that win-win.
Crossposted to The Streak.
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I’ve worked with Jello Biafra. I know Jello Biafra. Jello Biafra is a friend of mine. And Senator Jello Jay is no Jello Biafra.
And if he ends up moving aside for Feinstein, an imperfect but more reliable voice for oversight and civil liberties, it would seem like Rockefeller and progressives would consider that win-win.
Screw that. Feinstein is bad. Just ask Glennzilla. Feingold better get a chair one of these days!! I know he’s the the Intelligence Committee.
Yeah, but he’s way junior compared to DiFi and Ron Wyden. I’d personally prefer Wyden over DiFi, but it’s hard to see a way in which you jump over the next-senior member of the committee. The choice isn’t between Rockefeller and a super-awesome liberal, it’s between Rockefeller and the more-liberal and more-stalwart Feinstein.
Um, no. Feinsten caved on FISA, knew about torture and didn’t do anything, recommended Mukasey . . . the list goes on.
I have to agree with Cliff; there is no reason to drag the reasonably good name of Mr. Biafra–who introduced me to a bitterly sarcastic, left-leaning world-view in the tender days of my youth–through Rockefeller’s mushy and desultory politicking.