The Scold of the Senate: Could She Be Ready for the Showdown?

Elizabeth Warren is, among all other things, a scold.

She creates an atmosphere of accountability by merely being in the room. I saw it myself.

During the year in which I lived in Washington, DC, I would occasionally sit in on committee hearings, especially when they had something to do with education. This particular day, it had something to do with higher education.

The original atmosphere was same old, same old. Al Franken's body language reflected it. He looked tired. His chin was plunked onto his hand such that it might have been superglued there. He listened politely but had little to add. He and Lamar Alexander were the only Senators in the room.

It seemed a day like so many others: perfunctory, token, dull, nearly meaningless in terms of shaping policy. In came Warren. Sitting literally at the edge of her chair, she had questions--very, very pointed questions--in the form of a scold, as in how could you let this happen?

People squirmed. Answers became hesitant. But she got them. Then she got up and undoubtedly went on to something else she needed to get straight.

Don't think for a minute that she'd change this attitude if she becomes president. And don't think she would change anything in her approach if on the debate circuit with 45, with the future of the republic at stake.

Wall Street people don't like her because, as someone suggested in a recent New Yorker article, she's not there to argue with you. She's there to tell you the things she's going to do if people would just get the heck out of her way and let her do them because, after all, she's done the reading and she's done the asking and it's the right thing to do. And when it's the right thing to do, after all, there shouldn't be any questions.

But first, she would get after 45 like nobody else. Taxing the middle class and not the rich: How could you let this happen? The immigration crisis on the border: How could you let this happen? Our growing fiasco with Iran: How could you let this happen? The damage done to our allies: How could you let this happen? The utter lack of accountability for the elections and pretense of no Russian responsibility: How in blue blazes could you let this happen?

And on and on. If it came to that--and right now, the odds aren't exactly great though she's building some momentum--it would be fun to watch. It would be a showdown unlike any other. And it would decide the election right then and there, because the ultimate male, in his mind, would have to respond to a female who simply wouldn't take any guff from him.

He would try everything, personal insults included, "Pocahontas" and "socialist" being just for starters, and every venue available--Fox, tweets, the whole bit--without letup, weeks before the debate. He is, after all, desperate. And he knows why: all the wrong reasons.

How she would handle them would be the litmus test, because she'd have to get beyond them to prove that her policy initiatives, not the scattered shabbiness his represent, would be the direction that the country needed to have. In the meantime, she would pick a fight with him, not the other way around. To stay with the basis of that fight--not personal, just policy, which is the way she wants it--may or may not give off the best impression that she, and certainly not he, is the best person to take the reins now.

No way to know that, of course, seeing as how we're dealing with someone who will do anything and say anything to get what he believes to be the upper hand. (Look for his tweeting during the Demcratic debates to be an early indication.) And no matter how anything looks, he will claim victory. But it might still be left to her to call this monster out for who he is--a cruel, self-aggrandizing, and disgusting bully who has no justification to take on or keep such an important position.

But first, the preliminaries. The candidates' goals will be to stir up some dust. By the weekend, we'll see where it falls.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark