After spending over two months at her California home recovering from a case of shingles, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, returned to Washington, D.C. Tuesday, sparking a whirlwind of confusion Wednesday among Senate Democrats who allegedly weren’t even aware that she was due in before Thursday.

As my RedState colleague Becca Lower noted in her report, first glimpses at a frail and pale-looking Feinstein being carefully helped out of a vehicle and into a wheelchair, which she was sitting in when she cast her first floor vote in months, made Democrat “leaders” like Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) look all the more desperate and pathetic for putting public pressure on her to return.

“It’s pathetic that Feinstein, much like a much diminished President Joe Biden and an ailing Pennsylvania junior Senator John Fetterman, is being trotted out — in this case, carried out — when she obviously isn’t up to the task,” she pointed out.

But if you thought those in left-wing Media World were excited to see Feinstein back in D.C., where presumably she will get back to her duties on the Senate Judiciary Committee even though she says she’s on a “light schedule,” you would be wrong.

There was lots of chatter on the Twitter machine among left-leaning journos about how Feinstein shouldn’t have been there considering how sick she looked, and by “shouldn’t have been there” I mean “shouldn’t still be a sitting Senator.” They want her to resign now, and the fact that she hasn’t has seriously angered them.

The most notable among them was Intercept “reporter” Ken Klippenstein, who absolutely freaked out on his Twitter page and tried to “name and shame” Feinstein’s staffers in an effort to get them to resign:

Alright it’s time to name and shame Dianne Feinstein’s staff, all of whom should be blacklisted from politics forever for caring so little about their country that they refuse to resign (THREAD):
Adam Russell – press secretary (@JAdamRuss), paid $102,046

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 10, 2023

(Screengrabs are here in case the original tweets are deleted)

Klippenstein posted several more tweets which included the names of the staffers, their photos, and how much money they were allegedly making, all while staffers for other Democrats were calling him out for blaming Feinstein’s staff for the Senator’s situation.

Intercept DC bureau chief Ryan Grim agreed with Klippenstein up to a point, tweeting that “I do think the senior staff should be deeply ashamed of what they’re doing, and the jr folks do have some complicity here, but I wouldn’t have elevated them specifically.”

“Still, I don’t always agree with what Ken says but I defend his right to say it,” Grim went on to write.

In response to criticism, Klippenstein didn’t back down, mocking his detractors along the way.

“My mentions are a torrent of full suit avis screaming at me about how 20-something Princeton grads are downtrodden workers who are just following orders,” he wrote in one tweet, while in another he wondered “oh no what am i gonna do without hill staffers’ sh*tty planted stories.”

Though Klippenstein’s reaction to Feinstein’s return was pretty extreme, make no mistake about it: the consensus opinion among Democrats at this point even among those who don’t want to say it out loud is that Dianne Feinstein needs to go back home and stay there.

As I’ve said before, Feinstein’s condition isn’t a laughing matter, but watching Democrats in the media and in Congress tie themselves into knots over the situation has had me breaking out the popcorn, especially considering we know how Democrats would be behaving if the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak.

In any event, whether Feinstein comes through for Democrats on the few judicial nominees they haven’t been able to ram through the committee in her absence remains to be seen. As for Klippenstein and those who agree with him, our thoughts and prayers go out to them at this difficult time as they continue to sort through their coping woes.

Flashback: Dianne Feinstein Has an Alarming Exchange With a Reporter and I Have Thoughts