Viper in a Sundress
Yes, there are similarities...
Kyrsten Sinema blew the capital while many in her party worked over the weekend figuring out ways to pass legislation designed to thwart climate change, raise up the middle and lower classes after years of getting short-shrifted at the hands of the richest among us, rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and save democracy from Trump and Trumpism. Her Democratic colleagues stayed behind to find ways to pass such legislation...that’s being held up by her.
Insult, meet Injury
But that’s not all. Sinema just doesn’t fly off to some mountain or lakeside hideaway to hone her go/no go position--doing research, talking to constituents to reach a consensus, or taking long walks in the woods or along the beach to contemplate the best course for the nation. No, she flies home ostensibly for a doctor’s appointment (there are no good podiatrists taking appointments in the nation’s capital, apparently) for a broken foot incurred in June, four months ago. According to Sinema, she stumbled in a tunnel while running during one of her many racing events.
But one day before her Oct. 1 trip, photographs show Sinema walking around the Capitol absent any visible on-going difficulties or support, such as a soft cast, cane, or wrapping. Instead, Sinema is photographed before the Phoenix trip wearing a pair of fashionable hot pink slip-ons to match her red-on-hot pink print sheath dress as she is traversing the halls of Congress carrying a heavy purse or carryall. And yet, on the last day of an unending, stressful week with non-stop media scrutiny focused on a party fiercely attempting to come to terms on pivotal legislation for Americans and her president, Sinema chooses to fly home.
The healing power of cash on hand
Sinema isn’t up for re-election until 2024, but, hey, first things first. And the first thing on Sinema’s mind appeared to be not helping her president, the American people or her party, but stuffing her campaign coffers.
Sinema flew back to Phoenix ostensibly to seek medical attention, but also to look for money--lots of it, from a cadre of well-heeled donors joining her at a posh Phoenix spa for cocktails, dinner, and writing checks.
The check-writing exercise got a head start earlier in the week when Sinema held a fundraising event at an undisclosed location on Capitol Hill with five business lobbying groups, requesting they write checks from between $1,000 and $5,800 in connection with her “Sinema for Arizona” fund-raising arm.
These members of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and the grocers’ PAC, along with lobbyists for roofers and electrical contractors and a small business group called the S-Corp include prospective donor members who have strongly opposed the infrastructure bill Sinema has been negotiating in the Senate on behalf of Biden for the last several months.
Where are you?
Later, toward the end of the week but before her flight to Phoenix, Sinema engendered more negative publicity while dodging reporters and fellow lawmakers peskily asking the question: “What’s your bottom line negotiating number to secure your vote?”
In one attempted interview on camera in the halls of the Capitol, a television reporter asked Sinema, “Where are you?”--Congress speak for “What’s your position?” or “What are you demanding in the negotiations? or “What will you settle for?” Yet, for what seemed like an eternity from Sinema--crickets. Eventually, instead Sinema responded flippantly, “I’m here in the Senate” as if where referred to place, not political position.
When the reporter played along to some extent and clarified “where” meant what she would settle for, Sinema still dodged the question by frivolously responding, “I’m here in front of the elevator”--before the doors opened, she entered it, then heard the doors close behind her in the nick of time, abandoning the reporter and his question, perhaps believing her nonsense answer would suffice.
Blowback for blowing town..
As Sinema left for her doctor’s appointment and spa retreat with still more donors, her office staff spun her departure in “nothing to see here” fashion--stressing the Senator flew home to Phoenix due to the urgent need of seeing a physician for a four-month-old bone break. The statement’s aloof tone suggested the appointment offered the only basis for the trip while adding that Sinema provided information to the White House as to how she could join in discussions remotely and offered times as to how that would work best.
Following is what the senator’s spokesman John LaBombard said:
“Senator Sinema is in Phoenix currently where she has a medical appointment today for her broken foot, and where she continues remote negotiations with the White House. Before departing Washington for Arizona, she offered the White House times for continued remote negotiations.”
Planting the seeds?
But The Resistant Grandmother has been around long enough to detect problems in that statement, both for Sinema and her fellow Democrats laboring in the legislative vineyards back in the nation’s capital.
For one, whenever someone who is holding up legislation informs the people who are trying to overcome that obstruction as to when and how she can be reached, that person must be prepared for any and all anger, resentment, and retribution that follows.
Secondly, whenever someone willingly relinquishes his or her own power to others in a “OK, you handle it!” fashion, such a tactic is likely to then plant seeds in the minds of those left doing the work they are better off without you. And, in particular, slackers who zip off to cocktail parties and spa retreats--especially during a very public high stakes game of political survival--must likewise gird themselves for the eventuality that those to whom they delegated the heavy lifting will endeavor to bring about a life without you in it, whether immediately or over time.
Porter: “I’m not elected to read Sinema’s mind”
Representative Katie Porter from California’s 45th Congressional district who is playing a major role in trying to pass the Biden legislation tapped into some of that anger, resentment, etc. when she responded to a question about Sinema’s self-imposed absence from the negotiations and the unknown information of Sinema’s bottom line that goes with it. Speaking to Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, Porter criticized Sinema for refusing to define what she’ll accept in the multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill Democrats hope to pass through reconciliation:
“Until Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin are able to come up with what they
want to do for their constituents, to do for the American people—until Senator
Sinema stops being cute, and starts doing her job and leading for the people of
Arizona—we’re simply unable to be able to move the president’s
agenda forward.”
“I was not elected to read the mind of Kyrsten Sinema…thank goodness,
because I have no idea what she is thinking.”
Serious public servant, thy name is not Sinema
Veteran political reporter Greg Sargent echoed Porter’s frustration over Sinema’s inscrutability, writing in a Sept. 30 Washington Post column:
“However the battle over President Biden’s agenda turns out, this ugly saga will separate Democrats who take their role as public servants seriously from those who are operating with such epic levels of bad faith they are essentially insulting the intelligence of their own constituents.
“That essential point is this: Public servants should feel a basic obligation to level with the voters who granted them the privilege of being their representatives. While more may be happening in private talks than we know, all signs are that Sinema’s caginess is edging toward a level of deceptiveness that borders on betrayal of
public duty.”
Vipers then and now
“Viper” is another name for snake, reptile, and its mythical incarnation, the dragon. None of these iterations commonly enjoy a sterling reputation except perhaps from herpetologists who study them but are not required to like them. But I simply do not know for sure and could never have that job.
A two-decades old Gallup poll found that snakes topped the list of what Americans are most afraid of, outpacing the ever-popular “fear of public speaking” angst by about 20 percent.
Now in a way, Sinema shares in the reptile’s lack of popularity. Although no national polling on Sinema seems publicly available yet, a monitoring of the Senator’s media presence over the last week shows Sinema’s limelight taking a very dark turn.
Democrats attempting to get Biden’s legislation passed dislike her stubbornness. And Republicans rejoice in Sinema’s role in stymying Biden’s ambitions at least for now.
A Sept. 30 CNN report interviewing Democratic voters in Scottsdale, Arizona,
described Progressive dissatisfaction with Sinema in her home state and focused in
on Sinema’s standing in the way of the Democratic majority’s getting work done.
“This is our moment to deliver on all of the promises that we made," said Emily
Kirkland, the executive director of Progress Arizona. "She is just absolutely
standing in the way of that, without making clear what she wants."
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd similarly derided Sinema’s
enigmatic gamesmanship in her Oct. 3 column:
“Just like the original Sphinx, the Phoenix Sphinx is blocking the way until
those who would move ahead solve her riddle: What does Kyrsten Sinema
want? And why doesn’t she stick around to explain it?” writes Dowd.
“Somehow, we have gotten ourselves in a perverse situation where Sinema and
Joe Manchin rule the world, and it’s confounding that these two people have
this much sway.”
Sinema set off her own firestorm by releasing a statement slamming House Speaker Pelosi’s decision to delay the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) vote until late October rather than taking it up this week.
In another example of tone-deaf politics, Sinema criticized the Speaker’s decision as “inexcusable,” “deeply disappointing” and one that will likely “reduce trust within the Party,” reports Politico’s Marianne LeVine.
Brass and chaos
On Twitter, Obama chief campaign strategist David Axelrod responded to Sinema’s rant about the delay…that can be traced back to Sinema:
“Kind of takes some brass to blow out of DC for fundraisers back home in
the middle of this and lecture everyone by press release on ‘trust.’”
Perhaps the most visible takedown of Sinema came from Saturday Night Live in the opening skit of its Oct. 2 season debut. Featuring cast members playing Biden, Joe Manchin, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the skit skewers Democratic lawmakers for a lack of consensus on the Biden package, but levels its sharpest criticism at Sinema, played by veteran SNL cast member Cecily Strong.
In a comic attempt to find agreement on the infrastructure bill, Biden asks each legislator to say, for starters, if they do or do not “like roads.” One by one, they all respond in the affirmative--except Sinema. Frustrated, Biden--still trying to reach a deal--earnestly asks the Arizona lawmaker why she answered that way. Sinema answers: “I do not like roads.”
Biden then asks, incredulously, “Why?” Sinema answers: “Chaos.”
Cecily Strong-as-Sinema’s one-word answer skewers the Arizona Senator as either a pouty, illogical child or sociopath.
Snakes and humans
Across the millenniums humans have regarded snakes with a not unfamiliar level of wonderment Joe Biden expressed in talking with Sinema in the SNL sketch. A quick review of sites dedicated to snakes and their history revealed a wide range of opinions about the slithery creatures, with the question, “Are snakes good--or evil?” cropping up repeatedly throughout time. And the answers largely depended on in which historical period and culture the question was asked.
In an early chapter of man’s curiosity about the snake, the creature’s unblinking eyelids convinced many people that the legless reptiles actually possessed a superior intelligence to humans. But their uninteresting, single-minded behavior of eating and slithering and sometimes biting did not in the long run suggest a superior intellect as these initial observations posited.
In Judaeo-Christian myth, the snake in the Garden of Eden easily falls on the evil side of the spectrum with its calling card of deception and treachery that would bring disarray and discord to mankind until the end of time, according to the Genesis story.
Nordic myth pumps up its snakes to dragon-sized levels, the enlargement representing the often overpowering nature of evil as it roams the world at will. This is depicted in one of the first published examples of English Literature, the epic poem Beowulf, in which the protagonist becomes a hero because his task of overcoming the dragon (i.e. evil) is both so difficult and consequential to his community.
Another large snake of Nordic myth, Nidhogg, coils around one of the three roots of the Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, in an ongoing effort to choke or gnaw the life out of it. According to an on-line Norse mythology site, “Niddhogg’s actions have the intention of pulling the universe back to chaos” when he and his “reptile cohorts” can have their way with the earth.
Chaos again.
Arizona snakes: myth and reality
The Arizona rattler holds a special place in the folklore of America, particularly the Old West, just as it does in Arizona’s present. Hundreds of the serpents have been dislodged recently from their earth holes by bulldozers clearing land for the state’s unprecedented growth in suburban developments around Phoenix and Tucson. According to local papers, state and local governments are considering the snakes’ “relocation” to less populated areas of the state, since snakes are known to more easily adapt to new environments than can other kinds of animals. A managed approach to the state’s rattler problems may bring order out of chaos there.
Meanwhile, however, Arizona’s Senator Kyrsten Sinema, too, threatens to bring chaos...not only to Arizona but also to all 49 other states by her impenetrable refusal to both reveal her negotiation terms on Infrastructure and at least carve-out the filibuster to allow needed legislation on saving the climate, helping the lives of ordinary citizens, and--most importantly--protecting the vote.
Judging from the Senator’s coziness with high-end donors who don’t like Biden’s legislative package, going way-cheeky with journalists trying to decipher Sinema’s positions, winging her way from D.C. to Phoenix during high-stakes negotiations in the nation’s capital among House and Senate Democrats, and little-girl refusals to play by anybody else’s rules except her own, The Resistant Grandmother is worried.
It’s not hyperbole to say, as Maureen Dowd wrote, that no less than the future of the universe as we know it rests on the sundress-clad shoulders of Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona--a person who seems to enjoy the power, confusion...and chaos...of it all.