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Feinstein teaches us that too much experience can be a bad thing

Ruben Navarrette Jr. on

SAN DIEGO -- There is a thin line between experience and ineptitude. And, I'd argue, seasoned politicians cross that line all the time.

I'm grateful to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for reminding me of this important life lesson. Whether she realized it or not -- and I'll put my chips on "not" -- Feinstein has sparked a discussion about how long is too long to be on the job.

The spark occurred when the senator was recently confronted in her office by an angry mob of adolescents and pre-teens who seem to have gotten a little carried away by the quaint notion of representative democracy.

Will someone please sit these youngsters down, give them snowcones and explain that all that "of the people, by the people, for the people" jazz needs to be taken with a truckload of salt?

The young activists wanted Feinstein to do something radical: earn her paycheck, and soon her pension, by representing them.

The issue at hand was climate change, and the young people -- who were likely devotees of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who has said the world is on borrowed time -- demanded that Feinstein support the bill referred to as the "Green New Deal" in order to save the planet.

 

"Some scientists have said we have 12 years to turn this around," a girl told the senator.

Feinstein bluntly schooled the kid on the facts of political life, explaining why it's unrealistic to think that Congress will do anything about climate change in the next decade or so.

Then the senator told the young activists that she doesn't respond well to folks who tell her that she has no choice but to do things their way.

It's true. Politicians don't like being told what to do -- unless, that is, the folks giving orders are holding checkbooks. Then, they don't seem to mind so much. And the bigger the check, the more accommodating the politician.

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