The one and only debate between Pennsylvania Senate contenders Mehmet Oz (R) and John Fetterman (D) took place Tuesday evening, and the winner is clear: insanity.
That appears to be the consensus, with observers remarking that Fetterman gave “the worst debate performance in history,” one so bad that it made the event the “worst televised debate between two politicians that has ever happened,” to quote Australia’s Sky News.
The issue, of course, is that Fetterman is a fettered man, shackled by severe cognitive limitations resulting from a May stroke. While the candidate’s doctor — who’s also a campaign donor — has claimed Fetterman is “recovering well” and is capable of discharging his duties, this was belied by the man’s very first sentence in the debate. “Hi — goodnight, everybody,” said Fetterman, in what creative interpretation could fancy a Freudian slip. After all, one could imagine he didn’t want to be on that stage and would like to have skipped everything between “Hi” and “goodnight.”
The bottom line is that it was not a good night for Fetterman and the Democrats, as the Tucker Carlson Tonight video below illustrates.
Many viewers were shocked. “Honestly, the fact that this dude is a candidate for the senate (in any state) is absolutely astonishing,” wrote Scott Hugins under the above-linked Sky News video.
Just as astonishing (unless you know the press’s nature) was the mainstream media reportage. Bloomberg provided a prime example, writing the headline, “Fetterman’s Uneven Debate Gives Oz Traction in Pennsylvania Race.” Not to be outdone, The Baltimore Sun posted the article, “Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s rocky debate vs. Dr. Mehmet Oz raises anxiety among Democrats.”
“Uneven”? “Rocky”? Well, we have here contenders for Euphemism of the Year award.
As for Fetterman’s spin, he didn’t exactly say his dog ate his debate preparation, but his campaign did claim that “the closed captioning system used to assist Fetterman was slow and full of errors,” reports Fox News. “The debate host denied those claims.” (Apropos here is an old saying my mother often used: “A bad worker blames his tools.”)
This brings us to what’s even more astonishing: that the Fetterman team allowed their man to debate in the first place. Some may suppose it’s a prerequisite for holding office, and maybe it should be. But Democrat Katie Hobbs has dodged Republican Kari Lake in the Arizona gubernatorial contest, and she’s not even cognitively impaired (just morally and ideologically so). And, yes, refusing to debate is a liability — but not as much as is choosing to debate and proving you’re more fit to be a candidate for 24-hour care than for office.
This judgment was reflected in a Fox News voter panel on The Story with Martha MacCallum. While not a scientific sample, three of the five Pennsylvania voters featured had been undecided — and all three were decidedly leaning toward Oz after watching the debate (video below).
Of course, critics point out that were a Republican candidate as handicapped as Fetterman, few voters would be undecided because the media would relentlessly play embarrassing video clips and emphasize the person’s incompetence. Why, the Left wanted President Trump removed from office via the 25th Amendment — for supposedly being mentally impaired — even though he’s lively and lucid. They claimed G.W. Bush was too stupid to be president because he’d occasionally mangle a syllable and that his father’s vice president, fellow Republican Dan Quayle, was likewise doltish because he spelled “potato” with an “e” at the end during a school appearance. And liberals mock GOP gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, ex-football player Herschel Walker, because he speaks, well, like a football player.
As for Dr. Oz, he certainly debated competently on Tuesday and, not surprisingly, made no mention of his opponent’s cognitive difficulties. This accords with how Republicans in general, along with Democrats, “find sympathy” for Fetterman post-debate, we’re told. Yet while compassion for the ailing is understandable, there’s another side here.
This is reflected in a statement supposedly composed by Fetterman after his stroke. “The amazing doctors here were able to quickly and completely remove the clot, reversing the stroke,” he claimed May 15. “The good news is I’m feeling much better, and the doctors tell me I didn’t suffer any cognitive damage. I’m well on my way to a full recovery.”
Yet even CNN admitted that Fetterman had “told two very different stories about his health,” saying in a later statement that he’d ignored his well-being and, consequently, “almost died.” The point is that his first statement was assuredly a barefaced lie.
As with Joe Biden, who has dementia, Fetterman is impaired; unlike Biden, there’s no reason to believe he can’t perceive reality. Fetterman understood his condition, and he could’ve put his country, state, and party first and withdrawn from the race in May. He didn’t — being in thrall to personal ambition. Along with his far left-wing views (releasing murderers from prison en masse) and policy prevarications (he was against fracking before being for it), this speaks volumes about his judgment and character.
At the end of the day, however, none of this may matter. As of Monday, the day before the debate, 1.5 million mail-in ballots had already been cast in Pennsylvania, 50 percent of the number distributed. Note, too, that the commonwealth is perhaps the worst state for Democrat-enabling vote fraud — and that mail-in balloting is the type most susceptible to fraud.
I strongly suspect that Dr. Oz would win in an honest election. I even more strongly suspect that Pennsylvania’s contest will be anything but.
