Some outlets are covering it, but if you’ve been behind a bit on current events, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has been hospitalized. The Pennsylvania Democrat felt lightheaded Wednesday during his party’s retreat in Washington. He was kept overnight, though MRI tests have ruled out a second stroke.
Fetterman nearly died during the 2022 Senate campaign, suffering a severe stroke before the Democratic primary. He remained out of sight for a significant time, resurfacing to get back on the campaign stump, albeit with apparent impairments. This week’s medical episode was already previsioned for a couple of reasons. One, Fetterman refused to release his health records during the campaign. Second, the doctor who gave him the go-ahead was a campaign donor.
The GOP should also be careful about this subject for a few reasons, not the least of which is because it is a source of embarrassment.
In what should have been a red tsunami year, the GOP was incapable of establishing healthy majorities in Congress, and not being able to fend off a Democratic Senate candidate that couldn’t string sentences together was the coup de grace for the party that night. Does Fetterman beating Dr. Mehmet Oz says more about the GOP or the American electorate? I don’t know—but the lack of a candidate bench for the Pennsylvania Republican Party was explicitly exposed again in this race.
While Oz did his best and managed to turn around a campaign that looked like it was dead in the water—it wasn’t enough. The debate about whether the Trump factor and the emphasis on the 2020 election and its shenanigans turned off voters remains. And if that was strong enough to sway enough suburban voters in the Keystone State away from Oz and toward a man with mental impairments—that discussion about 2024 and what’s next has reached a new level of urgency.
Yet, back to Fetterman — will we let this slide?
I hope he recovers, but the accommodations the Senate has put in place for this man to do his job speaks volumes. He can’t do the job—and that’s not his fault. He had a medical incident, but something tells me his wife is dragging him along in this endeavor for selfish reasons. Rolling Stone even let it slip in the campaign’s waning days that Mrs. Fetterman had become the de facto candidate. This dynamic isn’t Mr. and Mrs. Wilson; this is Annie Wilkes.
I don’t even need to remind you that if Fetterman were a Republican and refused to release his health records, the media would have been in a feeding frenzy about what he was trying to hide. Even reporters from establishment media outlets caught on to the fact that Mr. Fetterman struggled to make small talk, which drew outrage from liberal outlets and other media colleagues in what appeared to be a coordinated effort to yank Fetterman out of danger.
The election is over, and now Mr. Fetterman couldn’t get through the first two months without being hospitalized. His doctor lied then, right? Will there be another call for his complete medical history to be released? Because now the public should know, especially Pennsylvanians who deserve full representation in the Senate, even when they rolled the dice on someone who was clearly at risk for not being up to that task.
