What with the Democrat judiciary woes piling up, including their failure to get the Supreme Court Justices to go along with their partisan games and Senate Democrats’ inability to get some of Joe Biden’s most radical nominees shoved through due to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s prolonged absence, you’d think the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee would be the one coming off as the most revealingly partisan during interviews.
Except that wasn’t the case on the Sunday edition of CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Anchor Jake Tapper, who won’t hesitate to tell you he is the most Principled™ Journalist of All Time (though not in those exact words), grilled Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on his party’s infighting over Feinstein’s health-related hiatus as well as the SCOTUS conundrum that her time away has only made worse.
Under normal circumstances, a reporter aggressively questioning an elected official is a good and necessary thing. But that’s not quite what Tapper was doing here. What was clear during the “interview” was that Tapper came off looking more like a newly-minted intern for Planned Parenthood and the AOC wing of the Democratic party rather than a neutral media figure who was just seeking answers.
For instance, here was the contentious exchange between Tapper and Durbin over Feinstein and Durbin’s refusal to force the issue as calls for her resignation continue to ring out (bolded emphasis added by me):
TAPPER: At what point do the tens of millions of voters currently lacking full representation in the Senate from California, at what point do they matter more than the feelings of a colleague whose health has been in question for a long time?
DURBIN: I can just tell you that Senator Feinstein is my friend and my colleague of many years. She’s gone through an awful lot. She lost her husband last year, and she’s had some real medical issues that are problematic for her at her age at this point.
I hope she returns, and I hope it’s this week. We need her. It is a challenge in the Senate Judiciary Committee to do our business.
[…]
So it’s a complicated situation. I hope she does what’s best for her and her family and the state of California and makes a decision soon as to whether she’s coming back.
TAPPER: I mean, all due respect, sir, you and your fellow Democrats were very ginger and very polite when it came to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in not pushing her to retire when you had a Democratic majority in the Senate.
How did that work out for you? How did that work out for Roe v. Wade?
[…]
DURBIN: I want to treat Dianne Feinstein fairly. I want to be sensitive to her family situation and her personal situation. And I don’t want to say that she’s going to be put under more pressure than others have been in the past. But the bottom line is, the business of the committee and of the Senate is affected by her absence.
Watch:
As I’ve said before, though Feinstein’s rumored cognitive issues and admitted shingles diagnosis are no laughing matters, I’ve been munching on the popcorn watching Democrats twist themselves into pretzels over the issue, with some all but ready to shove her out the door whether she likes it or not while others feign “respect” for her long time in the Senate and her contributions to the “feminist” cause or whatever.
But what Tapper did in his back and forth with Durbin was to quite literally rip a page out of the woke Democrat handbook in his questioning. Remember, well before Ginsburg passed away there were prominent leftists who were practically begging her to go ahead and retire while Obama was president because they were fearful a Republican would be elected in 2016 and that her health would decline or that they would lose her during that POTUS’ term in office.
And in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned last June, leftists lashed out at the late Justice again, claiming her legacy was “tarnished” as a result of refusing to step down.
Further, can you imagine a scenario where Tapper would take a Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman to task over the prolonged absence of a GOP Senator from the committee, resulting in a “lack of representation” in their home state? Hell no, he wouldn’t, because in all likelihood that would mean Republicans couldn’t get any pro-life nominees through, which would suit Tapper just fine considering his spouse is a former regional field manager for Planned Parenthood.
To be sure, I don’t care how uncomfortable Dick Durbin is made during his media appearances. In fact, the more squirming during these things the better. But what I do take issue with is Tapper always feigning journalistic superiority while at the same time doing the very wildly partisan things on air that he would chide hosts at rival networks over.
Clearly, CNN CEO Chris Licht still has some work to do.