Senator Joe Manchin put the nail on the coffin for Neera Tanden’s nomination as Office of Management and Budget director, then Senators Mitt Romney and Susan Collins hammered the nail into place. Now, after claims by the Biden administration that they would fight to get her confirmed, she has officially withdrawn her name from consideration in a statement from Joe Biden.
Tanden said in a letter to Biden: “Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no path forward to gain confirmation, and I do not want continued consideration of my nomination to be a distraction from your other priorities.”
— Amanda Becker (@AmandaBecker) March 2, 2021
Tanden said in a letter to Biden: “Unfortunately, it now seems clear that there is no path forward to gain confirmation, and I do not want continued consideration of my nomination to be a distraction from your other priorities.”
It’s a very diplomatic response to what was almost certain a withdrawal by the administration itself. Her toxicity on Twitter and other venues over the years disenfranchised many even among Democrats, though Manchin was the only Democratic Senator to officially pull his support. Democrats had hoped to keep the rest of their caucus and pick up the requisite lone Republican, but that seemed nearly impossible in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, outrage is brewing from the far left as they claim it was “sexism” and “racism” that prevented the Indian-American mother of two from ascending to a high-ranking position in the Biden administration. This is disingenuous as the severity of her “mean Tweets” from the past in which she attacked everyone along the spectrum from Senator Bernie Sanders to Senator Ted Cruz had nothing to do with her race. She was toxic. She has always been toxic. Her claims that she won’t be toxic as OMB director fell on many deaf ears.
Some leftist publications have the nerve to lambaste the decision as a result of whining Republicans plus Joe Manchin being too sensitive to her Tweets. Invariably, these posts barely mention her Tweets, some of which were pretty insulting. There’s a reason she has had to delete thousands of them since her name was first floated for the job. Even she was aware they were going to be a problem, so why are progressive news outlets pretending like moderate and conservative Senators are being too sensitive?
The same people who are condemning others as being too sensitive now spent four years describing President Trump’s Tweets in terms that would make one think he was literally killing puppies every time he sent one out.
Rest assured, had a straight white male with no boxes checked on the intersectionality scorecard said the same things Neera Tanden had said, they too would be ushered out of the OMB nomination. Democrats are gaslighting, as usual.
