The old saying is that if you can’t take the heat you should probably stay out of the kitchen.
No one forced the junior Senator from Pennsylvania to continue his quest for elected office after his stroke rendered him clearly compromised.
But John Fetterman’s handlers are “Hulk Mad” after this attempt to hide a new video showing Fetterman’s impairment went off the rails.
While Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has seen his struggles become commonplace since winning the 2022 Democrat primary, the latest chapter in his saga began earlier this week.
Fetterman said…..what?
While questioning the former Silicon Valley Bank CEO and other bank executives, Fetterman was incoherent with his speech when asking whether they believe it is “a running joke” that the government will always bail out a bank when it fails.
In reporting on this story, a Washington Post “journalist” called Jeff Stein acted more the part of a Democrat operative when he tweeted that Fetterman had asked Silicon Valley Bank ex-CEO Greg Becker, “Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Republicans seen to be more preoccupied with SNAP requirements for hungry people than protecting taxpayers that have to bail out these banks.”
The actual Fetterman quote was far more meandering and orders of magnitude more difficult to follow.
Fetterman actually left the witness speechless.
John Fetterman asks a question to the former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank pic.twitter.com/FOzRIS4NYY
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 16, 2023
More importantly, at an elementary level it just wasn’t what the senator actually said and Stein wasn’t acting in good faith as a journalist.
After he got called out for his action, Stein deleted the tweet.
Fetterman Comm Director: “Pathetic losers” want to understand what their elected rep says
Republicans were astonished over the whole sad affair but Fetterman’s office took umbrage.
Sen. Fetterman’s communications director Joe Calvello was clearly incensed, telling the Washington Examiner that “For many months, we have been clear and open about the fact that John still faces challenges with auditory processing challenges as a result of his stroke. His doctors expect his abilities to improve, but in the meantime, if pathetic losers want to make fun of someone who struggles with speech as the result of a stroke, that’s up to them.”
Lost on Calvello is the fact that it is hardly unreasonable for constituents to expect effective communication and understanding from their elected representatives in the world’s so-called “greatest deliberative body.”
Fetterman and his team knew the stakes during the election season last year when he hid for months to conceal his impairment.
NBC News reporter Dasha Burns doubted that Fetterman even understood what she was saying to him when he was eventually interviewed last year after months of time missing in action on the campaign trail.
That didn’t sit well with the Democrats’ Senate leadership.
Now after they painted the controlled opposition media into a corner, Stein getting called out for his attempt to avoid Burns’ mistake – aka telling the truth – has Democrats hitting the panic button.
If having the spotlight on the job Fetterman is doing representing Pennsylvanians in the Senate is too much for him to bear, there’s a simple solution.
The pool of potential replacements is infinite, should he step down.
There’s a really good chance that most of them could comprehend and speak well enough to represent Pennsylvanians at least somewhat.
Stay tuned to Blue State Blues for any updates to this ongoing story.
