Feinstein grabs spotlight, committee reins

[January 10, 2009]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's a new, yet familiar, face of female political power in Washington. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is the incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- the first woman to hold the job.

But Feinstein, a veteran of many skirmishes on Capitol Hill, didn't wait to take the gavel before asserting her prerogatives in the opening days of the 111th Congress.

Her public pronouncements on President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the CIA and on the controversy surrounding his open Illinois Senate seat earned her an apology from Obama and tart words from her own party leader.

They also said plenty about the tenacious, strong-willed woman who will play a key role in shaping Obama's plans to restore credibility and morale to U.S. intelligence operations -- presuming she doesn't run for governor of California instead, as many Democrats in her home state hope she will.

"I have reached a stage in my life where I'm going to speak out and I'm going to say what I think is right," Feinstein, 75, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

"My view is, 15 years into it, I've got some fair judgment about what the law is."

Earlier in the week Feinstein, who's served in the Senate since 1992, had become the first Senate Democrat to say publicly that Roland Burris should be seated in the Senate despite the taint of corruption surrounding the man who appointed him, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Feinstein's position put her at odds with her party's leaders, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly denounced her position as "not valid."

But Feinstein said she'd spoken twice with Reid before going public. She said the Burris appointment was valid under the Constitution, and the idea that the Constitution would be trumped by Senate rules relied on by Democratic leaders was "an impossible dream."

It was the second dustup starring Feinstein in as many days.

When Obama's choice of former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to become CIA head became public at the beginning of the week, Feinstein said she hadn't been informed and expressed a preference for an intelligence professional to head the agency.

After Obama called her to apologize -- "profusely," she said -- and she also spoke with Panetta, Feinstein came around.

Both episodes dominated talk on Capitol Hill, cable news shows and blogs. Feinstein said she didn't set out to make news.

"I was asked a question and I answered it honestly, and that's what started it," she said.

To some longtime observers, it was vintage Feinstein.

"She says what she thinks," said Gale Kaufman, a veteran Democratic consultant in Sacramento. "And while 80 percent of the time that may be in sync with her party or other people's politics, there's 20 percent of the time where it just is her."

The former San Francisco mayor is repeatedly ranked as California's most popular politician, bested only a few times by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Democrats and Republicans avidly court her support on issues from the environment to gay rights.

Depending on who's talking, she's the mama bear of California politics, or the 800-pound-gorilla.

"She's a larger-than-life figure," said Garry South, a California Democratic strategist who has run unsuccessful campaigns against Feinstein. "She has a certain mystique about her."

Although Feinstein usually votes the same way as the state's more liberal junior senator, Barbara Boxer, she parts with her party's base often enough on key votes -- including supporting the Iraq war, which she now regrets -- to have earned the distrust of some liberals. She works frequently and effectively with the GOP, and they lavish praise on her.

"Sen. Feinstein was a delight," said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, who served as top Republican on the rules committee that Feinstein chairs. "I view her as a very reasonable, management-oriented Democrat who wants to do things that will work."

Conventional wisdom says that Feinstein would win handily if she runs for governor next year, when term limits will prevent Schwarzenegger from seeking re-election. Feinstein said she hasn't yet decided, but she's always wanted the job, which she came close to winning in 1990. She passed up the chance to run in the 2003 gubernatorial recall, when she was viewed as the only Democrat who could have beaten Schwarzenegger.

Now, her new chairmanship provides powerful incentive to stay in Washington -- even though the prospect of being in a position to tame her unruly home state tugs her in the opposite direction, according to advisers.

Part of Feinstein's stature in California derives from her singular political history now being recounted by Hollywood. The film "Milk," starring Sean Penn, uses historical footage of Feinstein in its opening scenes.

Feinstein was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978 when Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered at City Hall. She found Milk's body, later telling how her finger slipped into a bullet hole as she felt for a pulse.

As board president, she automatically succeeded Moscone to become mayor and led San Francisco during one of its most turbulent periods.

Feinstein said she hasn't seen the movie and doesn't know if she could stand to, because those events were so traumatic for her. But she said those searing days put in perspective the crosscurrents she's felt on Capitol Hill recently, and any that might tug at her in her new job.

"Let me tell you something. The worst pressure I've ever had was in San Francisco during very difficult times following the two assassinations," Feinstein said. "This is all a piece of cake in comparison."

[Associated Press; By ERICA WERNER]

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