Fetterman is not better, man

With the U.S. Senate majority possibly hinging upon the race in Pennsylvania, there was a lot of scrutiny over Tuesday's debate between Democrat candidate John Fetterman and his GOP opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz. 

Given the elite media shills for leftists, their spinning of the obvious aftereffects of Fetterman's May stroke had tested the limits of even their bias. Whether it's doctored video clips making him appear coherent or reporting on a propaganda letter his doctor (a generous donor to Fetterman's campaign, BTW) released proclaiming he's "recovering well," the hope was that Fetterman could effectively run out the clock as his once sizable lead began to shrink. 

But as National Review's Jim Geraghty points out, there was no amount of spin that could cover for Fetterman's hideous performance on Tuesday. 

I expected Fetterman’s debate performance to be a Rorschach test, with Democrats insisting that he was fine and hand-waving away any problems, and Republicans pointing to every verbal misstep, pause, or oddly worded answer. But by the end of the hour, there was little debate, no pun intended. John Fetterman’s ability to hear, understand, process information, and speak appears to still be severely impacted by his stroke. Perhaps the worst moment of the night came when one of the moderators asked him about a statement he made in 2018 opposing fracking, and how he could square that past stance with his current claim that he always supported fracking. After a long pause, presumably from reading the moderator’s question from the monitor, Fetterman said, “I, I, I do support fracking and . . .” and then for a moment, Fetterman’s head shook, and his mouth moved, but no words came out. Then he picked up again: “I don’t . . . I don’t. I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.” With everyone watching likely mortified and embarrassed to watch Fetterman struggle to finish the sentence, the moderator mercifully moved on to the next question.

The one prevailing question that emerged after that debate was where does NBC's Dasha Burns go to receive her apology? You see it was two weeks ago when Ms. Burns, who had just completed a one-on-one interview with Fetterman, defied the media narrative by performing actual journalism.

 

Sparking further questions were comments made by the NBC reporter who conducted the sit-down, Dasha Burns, who said that while making “small talk” with Fetterman before the interview without captioning it wasn’t clear he was understanding their conversation. She noted Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” that stroke experts say this does not mean Fetterman has cognitive impairment.

“Doesn’t mean his memory or his cognitive condition is impaired and he didn’t fully recover from this,” Burns said. “And once the closed captioning was on, he was able to fully understand my questions throughout that 25-minute interview....

But even with closed captioning available during the debate, Fetterman was still a disaster. Ah, but instead of taking personal responsibility, his campaign staff complained that the CC wasn't sufficient, hence Fetterman's struggles. TV network NewsNation, which broadcasted the debate, wasn't having it. 

Statement from our parent company, @NXSTMediaGroup, in response to the @JohnFetterman campaign claiming he was “working off of delayed captions filled with errors” during last night’s Pennsylvania Senate debate on @NewsNation pic.twitter.com/PUT5ELfQ0C

— Robert Sherman (@RobertShermanTV) October 26, 2022

And since staunch partisanship is a helluva drug, some progs set expectations even lower in an attempt to enhance Fetterman's electability. 

 

So here's where they are now pic.twitter.com/arSNa2KdV7

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 26, 2022

The scary thing is that there's a realistic chance Fetterman could still prevail given his opponent is the proverbial empty suit. But given the race was a statistical tie going into debate night, there's no question Oz's electoral prospects were bolstered because of this. 

As I've said before, it's so surreal to think the Republicans' chances for a Senate majority may well rely on the electability of Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia. Imagine reading that sentence a decade ago. 

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