If John Fetterman’s recovery was going as fine as his campaign says it is, the public would be seeing Fetterman out on the trail a lot. Pennsylvanians are not hard-hearted people; they know recovering from a near-death health issue is a long, slow, climb. They’re willing to cut Fetterman plenty of slack — as long as he and his campaign aren’t hiding key details about his recovery.
But so far, Fetterman is sticking to lots of brief videos on social media, short speeches at events, and a few remote television interviews using closed-captioning to ensure he heard the question correctly. He insists he has “nothing to hide” and also that he will not be releasing his health records.
The sin is not a slow recovery from a life-threatening stroke; the sin is not being honest about a slow recovery from a life-threatening stroke.
Kyle Sammin, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer today, offers the hard truth that not everyone who suffers a stroke makes a full recovery. “His speeches reveal that while he may make a full recovery in time, he certainly has not yet done so. Now that mail-in voting is widespread in Pennsylvania, each day that passes without a detailed disclosure about how Fetterman was affected by the stroke is one in which Pennsylvanians will make a choice without having as much information as they should about the Democratic nominee’s health.”
The editorial board of the Washington Post is not impressed with Fetterman’s hedging about debates:
Since returning to the campaign trail, Mr. Fetterman has been halting in his performances. He stammers, appears confused and keeps his remarks short. He has held no news conferences. Mr. Fetterman acknowledges his difficulties with auditory processing, which make it hard for him to respond quickly to what he’s hearing. He receives speech therapy — and we wish him a speedy, full recovery — but the lingering, unanswered questions about his health, underscored by his hesitation to debate, are unsettling.
The Fetterman campaign squandered credibility by concealing from the public for two days after his stroke that he had been hospitalized. . . .
Fetterman is asking voters for a six-year contract without giving them enough information to make sound judgments about whether he’s up for such a demanding job. We have called for full disclosure of health records from candidates for federal office in both parties, including Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and we believe Mr. Fetterman should release his medical records for independent review.
No one is expecting Fetterman to recite Shakespeare’s sonnets from memory, solve quadratic equations on a white board, give a detailed explanation of tactical mistakes at the Battle of Gettysburg, or explain how electric car batteries work. All that is being asked is that he stand up on a stage and explain what he believes and what policies he supports, and why he is a better choice than Mehmet Oz. If John Fetterman really can’t do that, he’s not ready to be a U.S. senator.