Where were you, Senator Feinstein? Say it ain't so, Senator Boxer?

The last MD95 a/k/a B717 has left the Douglas works and is headed across the ramp to be delivered to Air Tran next month, according to The Washington Post. Senator Feinstein, in a trenchant observation which needs no contradiction, said "We live in a time of uncertainty" during a recent trip to the C17 facility on the north side of Long Beach.

Let me be frank and uncompromising like Garrison. I will not retreat an inch. Whether I'll be heard is another story.

Everyone's looking at the deconstruction of Douglas and the larger aerospace industry in the area like it's some sort of misty eyed Hollywood production, complete with nostalgia, retrospective history books, a lot of stiff upper lip "buck up there, Joe" scenes.

People, this is not some sad scene in a movie somewhere. It's an economic disaster of massive proportions that's been taking shape ever since Douglas went on the block in the early nineties. It's a disaster, in a word, that was engineered by Boeing. And while the portents were flying thick and fast and the layoffs were raging, what were the legislators who are the subject of this rant doing? Why, probably sitting on their asses in Washington or other places-certainly they were not paying attention and listening to the Dougloids. And they might have been the only people who had the horsepower to do something about it.

Instead of it being their first priority, it was no priority at all. And that means that you, the citizens of Long Beach and southern California, sat on your asses as well and let it happen.