California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein was a liberal stalwart who took up extreme positions against Second Amendment rights and harmful environmental policies. But when it was announced on Friday that she had passed away overnight, the liberal media choir joined their voices to gaslight Americans and falsely proclaim her a “centrist Democrat” who simply leaned towards “liberal priorities.”
Often and inaccurately touted as an unbiased journalism outfit, the Associated Press announced her passing on Twitter, saying, “BREAKING: Dianne Feinstein, a centrist Democrat who served as California’s senator since 1992, has died.” They followed up by calling her a “passionate advocate for liberal priorities.”
In their article titled “Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, an advocate for liberal priorities, dies at age 90,” reporters Michael R. Blood and Mary Clare Jalonick tried to have their cake and eat it too as they tried to paint her as “a centrist Democrat” who was somehow also a “champion of liberal causes.”
“Feinstein, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, was a passionate advocate for liberal priorities important to her state -- including environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control” they gushed, while also suggesting she was “a pragmatic lawmaker who reached out to Republicans and sought middle ground.”
The idea that she was a routine partner for Republicans on policy and was willing to come their way was more than just dishonest, it was disinformation.
According to the American Conservative Union, the organizer of CPAC, Feinstein’s lifetime rating was 8.06 percent on supporting conservative policy positions. She’s one of the lowest-rated Democrats. West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who’s often cited as another moderate Democrat, has a lifetime rating of 25.10 percent. Left-leaning FiveThirtyEight even noted that she voted 100 percent of the time with President Joe Biden.
Taxpayer-funded PBS NewsHour proved they didn’t care about the facts when they boasted that Feinstein was “a centrist Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 1992 in the “Year of the Woman” and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics…” They just regurgitated the report by the AP.
The Washington Post’s false pronouncements of Feinstein’s purported centrism used much more grandiose terms, with their headline reading: “Dianne Feinstein, centrist stalwart of the Senate, dies at 90.”
The Post’s Emily Langer also used conflicting language when she boasted that the later Senator “championed an assault weapons ban, and held down the center of the Democratic Party as it moved swiftly to the left.”
And with President Biden’s advanced age, his failing mental faculties, the advanced age of many sitting senators, and now an in-office death from someone who refused to call it quits, The Post ran a different article doing damage control against term limits. “Once common, Senate deaths in office are now rare,” Philip Bump and Lenny Bronner said in their headline.
It was much the same on TV news. On CNN’s Inside Politics, chief political analyst Gloria Borger reminisced that Feinstein “defined herself” and “everyone saw her as a centrist” and “pragmatist” who “refused to just be labeled one way or another.” And on CNN International’s Amanpour, fill-in host Brianna Golodryga called her a “true centrist” despite commending her for “spearheading a ban on assault weapons.”
