Taste of Her Own Medicine

It was a headline writer’s dream story. 

“A Taste of Her Own Medicine”

“The Spies That Don’t Love Her”

“Biting the Hand that Feeds Her”

All written about California Senator Dianne Feinstein, longtime Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Staunch supporter of the CIA, NSA, wiretaps and snooping.   Pooh-pooher of “the privacy people.”   Defender of electronic surveillance of any and all, convinced it is justified in the fight against terrorism. 

Dianne Feinstein (Uncredited/AP)But this week, unannounced, she stood before her Senate colleagues and blasted the intelligence establishment, especially the CIA, in a 40 minute tirade.  After years of defending the agency’s secrecy and guaranteeing their higher motives, she charged them with spying on her own committee, withholding key documents and hacking into her computer to take back documents they had given her.  Then she denounced the CIA for accusing her own staff of criminally stealing those documents.

She called it a constitutional crisis, said the CIA may have broken federal laws, and said she wondered “whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.”

Or as the headlines read:

 “Who Will Guard the Guards Themselves?”  (That’s a quote from the ancient Roman writer Juvenal’s “Satires” – plus ca change….)

“Their Stuff is Shit, but My Shit is Stuff!”

That latest was part of Jon Stewart’s pretty predictable, but still right-on, rant about how ironic it is for the Senate’s biggest defender of warrant-less wiretaps to get all incensed about being snooped on herself.  When it was other people getting snooped, that was just their shit being exposed.  But when it was she and the great Senate Intelligence Committee, that’s not shit, that’s stuff.  He’s quoting a famous routine by the late great comedian and social critic George Carlin about our “stuff” (possessions).  How we define ourselves by our stuff and let it rule our lives.  And how we think our stuff is far superior to other people’s stuff.   Like when we visit other people, it’s their stuff that takes up all the room, and our stuff is treated like shit.  “But it’s not shit, it’s my stuff!”….well, just watch Carlin on this Youtube video; it’s classic.

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Why does this sound familiar, the politician change of heart when it hits home?  Oh yeah, it reminds me of people who so vehemently oppose gay rights and pass all kinds of laws against gays and lesbians.  And then one day their kid comes out, and overnight the parents support gay marriage.  That would be what former Vice President Dick Cheney and Ohio Senator Rob Portman, good conservative Republicans, did.  They both worked for years to limit gay rights and oppose gay marriage, denouncing gay people left and right.  Until the day their own children came out as gay, and overnight their positions changed and they were big gay marriage supporters. 

My precious kids are stuff, but other people’s kids are shit.

I think it’s called hypocrisy, or double standard. 

More headlines:

“Di-Fi: My privacy, yes; ordinary citizen, no.” (That’s her tabloid nickname, Di-Fi.)

“Snooping Got Too Close to Home”

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Actually I’ve always liked and admired Dianne Feinstein.  She was a good mayor of San Francisco, and she’s been one of our senators for four terms, for over 20 years; last election she got 62% of the vote.  She got good strong gun control legislation passed in 1994, outlawing assault style automatic weapons, after a horrible massacre in the financial district in SF.  (It expired and was not renewed in 2004.)  She’s a moderate Democrat, more conservative than many in her hometown, a bit of a hawk, but hardworking, finally came around to supporting gay rights after a slow start in the 80’s. 

With a lot of seniority she has a lot of power in the Senate.  With Nancy Pelosi, also from San Francisco, she is one of the most powerful women in government.

So as a staunch defender of the CIA and its surveillance practices, for her to stand up and criticize the agency is like George Bush saying, “Wait, I was wrong, let’s not invade Iraq.”  Politicians don’t like to admit mistakes, or acknowledge their own hypocrisy. 

It’s easy (and humorous) to point out the irony of her conversion to the ranks of privacy advocates.  But let’s hope she takes her hawkish fighting spirit into the secret halls of the CIA and brings in some sunshine.

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter