With the previous seven Biden nominations passing the Senate with massive bipartisan support, the nomination of Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), appeared to be a shoo-in. She just needed one of the spineless Republican senators to cross the aisle and support her.
She couldn’t get a single one.
Her problem was two-fold. First, West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin indicated last month that he wouldn’t support her for the position of director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under Biden. Upon learning that immediately after being nominated, Tanden deleted over 1,000 of her more offensive tweets, Manchin said such behavior raised “concerns about her commitment to transparency.”
He added:
I have carefully reviewed Neera Tanden’s public statements and tweets that were personally directed towards my colleagues on both sides of the aisle from Senator Sanders to Senator McConnell and others.
I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget. For this reason, I cannot support her nomination.
Second, she needed support from at least one of the very senators she had viciously attacked previously in her acidic Tweets. In the past she had called Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) the “worst”; she compared Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to vampires; and she nicknamed Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “Moscow Mitch,” comparing him to Lord Voldemort, the evil character in the Harry Potter series.
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During the Supreme Court hearing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Tanden wrote, “These Republican male senators, sitting in judgment of Dr. [Christine Blasey] Ford, need to take up knitting.” Separately she issued a statement criticizing Senator Collins for issuing a “pathetically bad faith argument as cover for President Trump’s vicious attacks on survivors of sexual assault.”
She weakly apologized in her opening remarks at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee:
I know there have been some concerns about some of my past language on social media, and I regret the language and take responsibility for it.… I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for any hurt that they’ve caused.
On Tuesday, knowing that her bid was dead in the water, she asked Biden to withdraw his nomination. Prior to that moment, Biden remained adamant in his support of the toxic Tanden. Upon receiving her request, he granted it, but said that she was such a valuable talent that he would somehow find a place for her in his administration, in a position that doesn’t need congressional approval.
Her personal toxicity aside, Tanden was a perfect choice for the Biden Cabinet. She supported the presidential campaigns of Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Barack Obama in 2008. In the interim, she was a senior staffer to Hillary Clinton during her run for the presidency in 2000 and during her stint as senator. During the Obama administration, Tanden helped draft the odious Affordable Care Act.
For their part, many Republicans are showing a serious lack of backbone when it comes to opposing Biden’s nominations. Despite her attacks on his Republican colleagues and her long history of political activism for the Left (to say nothing of promoting the progressive agenda while head of the CAP), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said to Tanden:
I think you’re a highly qualified person for the job. Everybody that [sic] deals with you on our side has nothing but good things to say. You might talk me out of voting for you, but I doubt it.
With the single exception of Tanden, it appears that Biden will get his way with any far-left individual he cares to appoint to critical positions in the federal government. He won’t have to worry about any resistance from the opposition.
