Whether or not anyone on the left wants to acknowledge it, mental acuity in a public official is important. Two prime examples have come forward this week that point to the necessity of elected officials being able to mentally function in office. These are two who are not Joe Biden, who gives us an example just about on a daily basis of what it looks like to be a fork short of a place setting.

Not to be mean, but we have to be real here. How are constituents being adequately represented if their senators aren’t all there on the job? Yes, absolutely in these cases, the voters are to blame for them being in office in this shape, shouldn’t there come a point when they are recalled or pressured to resign so someone who can do the job is put in place?

Let’s look at Senator John Fetterman (D-PA). Fetterman was elected by voters in Pennsylvania who didn’t want to vote for Dr. Oz. Fetterman had some political experience on his resume, having been mayor of a small town and he was the lt. governor of Pennsylvania. But, Fetterman suffered a near-fatal stroke during the campaign and never fully recovered from it. He has real difficulty communicating, to put it mildly. So, when he questioned ex-Silicon Valley Bank CEO Gregory Becker Tuesday in a Senate Banking Committee hearing, it was noted that his line of questioning left Becker speechless. Becker, and anyone else who was listening, had no idea what Fetterman was asking him.

Fetterman was upset that the executives at the bank went to Hawaii after its collapse. Becker has a home there.

“So, I went up on the Internet, and it’s like, it did happen. It did happen. It did happen,” Fetterman said, holding up a cutout of a New York Post headline titled “Ex-Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker jets to Hawaii after collapse.”

“And it’s in Fortune, the second-biggest bank in U.S. history collapsed and chose to go to Hawaii on that,” he continued. “You know, I’ve never been to Hawaii and neither has my family. I guess I’ve never cranked, excuse me, crashed a bank.”

Fetterman isn’t the only one to think the optics of that were bad. But then he continues and veers into a weird direction – should executives who lead their banks into bankruptcy and in need of a federal bail-out be required to fulfill work requirements for the bail-out?

“Do you believe that that is not outrageous that, no matter how deplorable your performance is, you are made as whole and all by … taxpapers (sic),” the Pennsylvania senator continued. “So what do yous (sic) believe?”

Fetterman then asked what would’ve happened if Silicon Valley Bank had not been bailed out before moving on to say, “Is it staggering? Is it a staggering … it’s a responsibility that the head of a bank could literally, could literally crash our economy.”

“It’s astonishing. That’s like if you have, I mean like, and they also realize is that now they have … a guaranteed way to be saved by, again, by no matter, by how?” Fetterman said. “Isn’t it appropriate that this kind of control should be more stricter to prevent this kind of thing from going, or should we go on start bailing and sailing whoever bank regardless of how … their conduct is?”

After a pause with no answer, Fetterman said he would give “an example” before attacking Republicans for wanting to introduce food stamp work requirements and asking if Silicon Valley Bank should have a “working requirement” after the bailout.

“Because they seem more preoccupied when then SNAP requirements for works for hungry people but not about protecting the taxpapers (sic) that will bail no matter whatever does about a bank to crash it,” Fetterman said, before a long pause and turning control back over to the committee chairman, Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Fetterman was angry that Republicans on the committee suggested work requirements for those who receive food stamps so he turned it on Becker. Should bank execs have to fulfill work requirements for taxpayer-funded bail-outs? Becker was confused, as anyone listening to the ramble by Fetterman was, and it rendered him speechless. It is painful to watch. Fetterman turned it back over to the chairman when his ramble was met with dead silence from Becker.

JUST IN: John Fetterman struggles to ask a question at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.

This is the most painful 90 seconds you will watch all month.

“That’s like if you have I mean like, eh eh and and they also realize is that that that now they have, it’s in they… pic.twitter.com/lgy7UTNipc

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 16, 2023

The sad part is that there are those who benefit from Fetterman being in his seat that encourage him to remain in office.

“I’m so glad John Fetterman is back in the Senate,” tweeted Victor Shi, the youngest Illinois delegate for Joe Biden at the 2020 Democratic Convention. “He just grilled the current CEO of Silicon Valley Bank about whether CEOs who crash banks should be subjected to work requirements. That CEO literally couldn’t say a single word in response.”

Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said he was stunned and impressed by the senator’s comments, adding that he “almost fell out of my chair” hearing his questions for Becker.

“I am not ashamed to admit I was wrong about Fetterman. He’s not only speaking up, he’s been sponsoring and cosponsoring legislation and generally being an active and solid member of the party,” Democrat @StabbyandSpicy tweeted in response to the clip of the senator on Tuesday. “Good on him.”

Democrats are not sending their best to the Senate.

The second example is Senator Dianne Feinstein. She returned to work after being away from her office for several months as she battled shingles. She is still recovering and is under doctor’s orders to work a shortened work schedule. But, Democrats are so pleased that she is back and able to vote for Biden’s judicial nominees in the Senate Judiciary Committee that they are looking the other way on the question of her mental acuity.

Feinstein spoke with a reporter from Slate, a liberal news outlet, who caught up with her as she was coming off an elevator. She was in her wheelchair and flanked by staff. The reporter said she keeps her movements mostly to the least-populated passageways. She skips luncheons and non-urgent committee hearings.

I asked her how she was feeling.

“Oh, I’m feeling fine. I have a problem with the leg.” A fellow reporter staking out the elevator asked what was wrong with the leg.

“Well, nothing that’s anyone concern but mine,” she said.

When the fellow reporter asked her what the response from her colleagues had been like since her return, though, the conversation took an odd turn.

“No, I haven’t been gone,” she said.

OK.

“You should follow the—I haven’t been gone. I’ve been working.”

When asked whether she meant that she’d been working from home, she turned feisty.

“No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said. “Please. You either know or don’t know.”

Senator Feinstein doesn’t remember that she was absent from work for months. This tracks with concerns that have been expressed by her colleagues for quite some time that her mental acuity is failing. She is often as Joe Biden is – dazed and confused. It is a sad ending to a long career in public service. She is not running for re-election at age 89 and not in the best of health.

Democrats have only themselves for continuing to re-elect Feinstein and for voting for Fetterman in the primary and then the general election against Dr. Oz. They just want someone with a ‘D’ beside their name so that Democrats can keep the Senate majority. Their constituents are not receiving the service they should be receiving, though, with senators who are not fully capable of doing their jobs.