“Hi. Good night, everybody.”
That’s how Senate candidate John Fetterman began his first and only debate of the 2022 election, and it turned out to be the high point of his evening.
I watched the whole thing, and it was the longest hour of my life that didn’t involve some sort of surgery. Fetterman had obviously prepared some canned lines, but they got all jumbled up because he couldn’t read the labels.
Fetterman kept trying to make “the Oz Rule” a thing — calling his opponent a liar, basically — and it might have worked if he’d been able to use it in a sentence.
The fine folks at the Washington Free Beacon have condensed a full hour of Fetterman’s stroke-addled babbling into 90 seconds:
A few of Fetterman’s bon mots:
“He got his Pennsylvania house from his own inlays! From a dollar!”
“I do support fracking, and I don’t, I don’t... I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.”
“My doctoral believes that I’m fit to be serving, and that’s what I believe is where I’m standing.”
“Everybody in Braddock, an overwhelmingly majority community of black, uh, community all understood what happened. Y’know, they understood what happened. And everybody agreed that, and nobody believes that it was anything about me making a split-second decision to defend our community as well.”
“Again, I just can’t just say one thing other than that Dr. Oz would not support and he would support cutting Medicare.”
“I just believe. I just, making it that much more, it, it costs too much, and I believe providing the resources to reduce the tuition allow families to be able to afford it.”
“Dr. Oz loves free, free money when it’s a half a million dollar tax break on one of his homes down on the ranch in Florida, and whether it was a $50 tax break, you know about his farm in Montgomery County. So it’s about supporting and helping, y’know, young earners… excuse me, young… young, uh… young, y’know, students…”
Then Fetterman closed with this outburst:
Clearly, the campaign staff and journos (what’s the difference?) who told us Fetterman is fine were lying. And they continued to lie, even after their lies were exposed:
It’s ableist to notice that Fetterman is unable to comprehend and speak language.
Putting Fetterman on a debate stage is like putting Stevie Wonder in a stock car. Now his team is blaming the other driver for not crashing.
Has Fetterman’s disastrous debate performance hurt his campaign? I don’t see how it can help. But the people who were planning to vote for him yesterday are still planning to vote for him today. And the people who’ve already cast their ballots in early voting can’t take them back. They’ll find some way to rationalize Fetterman’s obvious unfitness for office, because that’s what partisans do when they’ve been proven wrong. It’s too late to back out now.
Good night, everybody!
COVID-19 is back to being a pandemic, a month after President Biden declared it was over:
And noted medical expert Karine Jean-Pierre had this to say:
Oh yeah? Since when?
Sometimes I wonder how Dems can make excuses for John Fetterman. Then I remember who the leader of their party is:
Rashid Sanook, Rishi Sunak, whatever. At least Joe is trying, isn’t he? I mean, it’s not like he’s a Republican.
Today is a very special day. Did you forget? Don’t tell me you forgot!
Hey, she’s still got time. On January 20, 2025, she’ll be almost a year younger than Biden was when he was sworn in. Anything can happen, unfortunately!
Happy Hump Day. It’s been sunny and unseasonably warm in Indiana for the past week, which stinks. But today it’s cold and rainy and miserable. Ahhhh, that’s more like it!
I’m halfway through the new Jack Reacher book. Lee Child and his brother Andrew1 have been splitting up the writing duties for the last few books, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. But as usual, there’s something comforting about Reacher always being smarter and stronger and faster and tougher than the bad guys. Not only does he always win, the bad guys are always satisfyingly humiliated. He’s like an itinerant Batman. Sherlock Homeless.
Hey, give me some money so I can buy more books!
Or whatever their real names are, I don’t feel like looking ‘em up.
"Putting Fetterman on a debate stage is like putting Stevie Wonder in a stock car" - Best line ever.
Watching the debate, I couldn't help but think that this would be like Gabby Gifford's husband insisting that she get out on the campaign trail after being shot in the head. Fetterman is suffering a form of brain damage and it is absolutely pathetic that the PA dems would think that he is a better candidate than Conor Lamb. It's an insult to the people of PA to shove him out there as a serious candidate. Like Biden's family, Fetterman's family should be charged with abuse for using him for their own ends.
"Rashid Sanook, Rishi Sunak, whatever."
"And now the President of the United States - Hoover Heever."