Herewith, some news for those within the press who are attempting to bat away scrutiny of John Fetterman’s health with mawkish, bullying indignation: Nobody believes you.
We don’t believe that you can’t see it. We don’t believe that you think it’s unacceptable to discuss. We don’t believe that you think it’s a distraction. We don’t believe that you are truly unable to grasp the difference between Fetterman’s issues and the fact that Senator Tammy Duckworth lost two legs fighting in Iraq, or that you think “wheelchairs and glasses” is a convincing retort. We don’t believe you’re actually upset about this — and, if you are . . . well, that doesn’t matter, either. There is nothing bigoted or illegitimate about opposing the election of a senator because he has clearly been incapacitated by a terrible stroke, as the Chicago Tribune did in 2016. The latest reporting on Fetterman — which contains sentences such as, “In small talk before my interview, it wasn’t clear he understood what I was saying,” and, “We spoke using Google Meet, because the stroke had made it difficult for him to process what he hears” — makes clear that his health is an electoral problem, even as it tries to pretend otherwise.
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