It’s enough to make you want to scream
I am watching one of the most sickening political rituals that exists in American politics right now. You know, the one where they stalk candidates who have a health condition and harass them for their medical records, whine incessantly about how they have been betrayed because the candidate didn’t inform them personally of their every sniffle and otherwise behave as if disabilities, even temporary ones, are disqualifying for office. That’s what they are doing with John Fetterman right now who gave an interview with NBC yesterday that has the entire press corps rubbing their hands together with glee that they can pretend to be “speaking for the people” as they pass judgement on Fetterman’s cognitive powers despite obvious evidence that his cognitive powers are fine.
Fetterman has what they call an “auditory/processing” deficit caused by his stroke. It is temporary and it is improving. It has nothing whatsoever to do with his cognitive abilities and is easily dealt with by using the miracle of modern technology which he showed in his NBC interview proving that he’s fully capable of being a US Senator.
Jesus, the US currently has at least 10 members who are barely sentient! Ans if you want proof of a cognitive problem in a Senate candidate I have two words for you: Herschel Walker. Have any of the these ghouls pressed him for his medical records, taking a look at how many concussions he had as a football player? No. His alleged problem is all about his morals, despite the fact that unlike Fetterman, he has clearly demonstrated numerous times that he is completely clueless about what the job he is asking to do entails.
This has happened before. The press pack gets over-excited at the prospect of taking down a candidate on this “health” issue and it’s grotesque. I’ve always hated it.
Rebecca Traister, a sensitive, humane journalist, wrote a great profile of Fetterman this week in which she demonstrates how to deal with a candidate with a health issue like a decent human being. I highly recommend that you read it. Here is her response to the ghastly speculative reporting on this:
I wrote in my lengthy profile of Fetterman this week about how open he has been about his ongoing stroke recovery, and how awful it is to watch not just Fox but mainstream media push for “transparency” even as he offers just that.
Watching tv news/online pundits leer over clips of an interview in which he’s completely engaged and communicative is stomach-turning and a super depressing example of what I was trying to describe:
“Every week, Fetterman’s public engagement has increased, & nothing about his increasingly frequent rallies & media interactions is at odds with what doctors suggest would be normal for a 53-year-old four months out from a serious stroke and expected to make a recovery.”
“Yet legitimate newspapers are pushing for further documentation with some of the energy once applied to Hillary’s emails, while the right-wing carnival barkers treat complete medical records as they did Obama’s birth certificate.”
Fetterman speaks about what it’s like to have a doctor (Oz) mock his recovery—a gross irony, yes. Also ironic is news media clamoring for transparency then themselves offering distortion: implying challenges are cognitive when they’re not, failing to contextualize accommodations.
Anyway, I think JF offering an open view of his recovery is fascinating & potentially very powerful in a period when this whole nation is struggling to recover from…a lot. Callous and contextually loose treatment of that recovery process is striking.
Originally tweeted by Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) on October 12, 2022.
Striking is a nice way of putting it. It’s disgusting.
Here’s an example of how the press is flogging the Fetterman interview:
Plenty of other reporters who’ve interviewed him say this is nonsense:
Kara Swisher went on:
Listen to the interview in which we did not edit the ums or ahs out as we typically do for everyone else. There were few slips — I had more — and at no moment did he seem distracted:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-with-kara-swisher/id1643307527?i=1000582144500
Lastly the most irksome thing for me when I had a stroke in 2011 is all Dr. Google folks who kept trying to give me advice (“Slow down,” they’d say; “Fuck you,” I’d reply) or study my speech for signs of trouble. It is a slow recovery but many younger people do just fine.
Btw 11 years later, I still fear another, even tho anyone can die at any moment of anything at all. That’s why I’m getting heart surgery soon — the medical strides related to strokes are impressive — to close the hole there that caused it. Just not by this guy. Or Oz.
Originally tweeted by Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) on October 12, 2022.
Here’s the MSNBC interview. He’s fine. And anyone who would vote for that Trump-humping conman Oz over Fetterman simply because he had a stroke from which is recovering is the one who has brain damage.