Why is Neera Tanden so important that Democrats would smear Joe Manchin to save her doomed nomination?
“Tanden is a violent and vitriolic hack without the chops for running the entire federal budget. But sure, sexism and racism … or something.“
It’s a bold move to smear your own party’s most important senator as a racist and sexist. But evidently, the Biden administration believes that ramming through a professional Twitter troll as the director of the Office of Management and Budget is worth it.
Nine of President Biden’s nominees earned bipartisan support and, with the exception of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, majority support even among Republicans. But now, the president of the liberal Center for American Progress is set to be voted down by every Republican in the Senate plus West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. Manchin, the crucial swing vote of the 50-50 Senate, has announced his opposition to Tanden’s confirmation.
The case against Tanden is simple enough: She lacks both the resume qualifying her for such a vital position and the civil temperament to work across the aisle.
Not since Ronald Reagan has a president successfully seen through every single Cabinet nomination, and the number of failed nominations per administration has only escalated in recent history. George W. Bush had to withdraw two nominees, Barack Obama three, and Donald Trump four. (Bill Clinton was an outlier, with five nominees withdrawn.)
It’s to be expected that at least one of Biden’s nominees would fail, and given Tanden’s prolific Twitter tirades — among other more unsavory items, she’s called centrist Republicans Susan Collins “the worst” and Lisa Murkowski “high on [her] own supply” — everyone assumed that Tanden served as the administration’s sacrificial lamb to take attention off of his more consequential nominees.
And yet, Biden’s team has chosen Tanden’s confirmation as the hill to die on, deploying the Hail Mary pass of Democratic politics — a bigotry accusation. Astoundingly, the senator being smeared is key not only to Biden’s $1.9 trillion fantasy of a coronavirus aid bill but also every judicial confirmation and budget deal for the next two years.
Just days after Manchin’s announcement, California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu accused those opposing Tanden of a “double standard.” New York Rep. Grace Meng deemed Manchin’s opposition to Tanden and indecision about Interior Secretary nominee Deb Haaland a “pattern that is happening and increasingly hard to ignore.” Manchin’s colleague from Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, also echoed the “pattern” line, and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries insinuated that Manchin’s opposition to “people of color” was no coincidence. Top Biden-backers in the media, such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Bill Kristol of the Bulwark, have also claimed opposition to Tanden stems from sexism.
Yet somehow, these sexists confirmed Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines before any other Cabinet nominee, with just 10 Senators opposing. And somehow, right after that, these racists confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a black man, with just twosenators opposing.
Maybe they’re all racists and sexists. Or, maybe the problem is that Tanden spent the last four years hurling caustic insults at the very senators she would have to work with as OMB director. And maybe Biden should have chosen an actual qualified candidate instead of a hackish resistance bully so vicious that she once punched journalist Faiz Shakir for having the audacity to ask Hillary Clinton a question about the Iraq War. (Tanden insists that she merely “pushed” him.)
So now, the greater question is why Biden considers Tanden so important to his administration that he’s willing to jeopardize his relationship with someone so critical to his agenda. Some say it’s because of Tanden’s close personal relationship with White House chief of staff Ronald Klain, whereas others assert that Clintonworld insisted on her.
But consider: Tanden was just as much a thorn in the side of leftists as she has been for Republicans, famously insulting and smearing Bernie Sanders and his allies. Yet Biden blindsided Bernie, refusing to give him a heads-up about her nomination even after the Vermont senator did Biden the favor of quitting the presidential primary, a show of respect that he did not grant Clinton.
And all of this ignoring that Tanden is a conspiratorial troll who blamed Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court on Russia, outed a sexual harassment survivor in retaliation for her coming forward, and thinks the solution to our deficit is for Libya to repay us for illegally bombing it by giving us its oil.
Tanden is a violent and vitriolic hack without the chops for running the entire federal budget. But sure, sexism and racism … or something.
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