You gotta give it to the intrepid “reporters” in the activist media. Even when faced with a godawful Democrat like Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, they will still bend over backward to concoct new and innovative ways to spin, spin, and spin some more. I mean, the gaslighting was amped up to 11 as media activists tried, with a straight face, to insist that the whole affair was a disaster for the Democrat.
First up, we have TIME media activist Charlotte Alter posted a lengthy thread on Twitter before the debate in which she engaged in some pre-spinning to prime her followers into thinking that everything’s just fine with Fetterman even if he screws the proverbial pooch. She assured her audience that the Democrat “has never been a good debater,” even before he suffered a stroke earlier this year. Alter argued that his vibe is “talks like a normal person” and not like a polished politician.
Ahead of the Fetterman/Oz debate tonight, it's worth remembering a couple things:
1) Fetterman has never been a good debater. Even before the stroke, he has always been a somewhat wooden debater (see: PA primary debate, pre-stroke.) He's not Pete Buttigieg
— Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) October 25, 2022
The View’s Joy Behar, who still can’t understand why regular Americans are concerned about inflation, slammed Dr. Oz for criticizing Fetterman during the debate, showing that she also does not understand what the Hippocratic Oath means. She said:
“The Republican Party is running a bunch of ads about showing Fetterman stumbling on things because of the stroke. What kind of a doctor is behind that, aren’t they supposed to do no harm? It’s so unempathetic to the guy, you know? And I just want to say that Oz is very slick. He’s a TV guy. Remember that. There’s another woman in Arizona, Kari Lake, also a TV woman. So they’re very slick, you know, and Fetterman kind of like, you know, with the stroke and without the stroke is not as slick. But he has ideas, and he has governed.”
So basically, Behar believes Dr. Oz is violating the Hippocratic Oath by *checks notes* running a Senate campaign against Fetterman. It’s amazing anyone takes these people seriously.
Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty wrote an op-ed in which she speculated that Fetterman’s struggle to heal from his stroke might “strike a chord” with voters. After acknowledging that folks on both sides of the aisle believe the debate did “possibly fatal damage” to his campaign, she insisted that “most voters don’t see these events the way that political reporters, campaign operatives, and social media obsessives do.”
She continued:
The question is what voters take away from Tuesday’s debate: concern that Fetterman is too infirm to serve, or empathy for what he has been dealt and admiration for his courage in agreeing to be on that stage in the first place?
Tumulty’s piece was the type of pollyannish display of wishcasting that many in the activist media are exhibiting at the moment. It is just one in a series of arguments intended to cope with the fact that Fetterman greatly diminished his chances of defeating his opponent.
But it is worth noting that not all left-leaning activist media outlets are pretending Fetterman’s isn’t an issue. Several news organizations actually told the truth: His performance was so cringe-worthy even Biden probably winced a few times while watching it – if he stayed awake long enough.
The fact of the matter is that Fetterman did not do himself any favors. He did so badly that I had a hard time figuring out how to satirize it. But I did so anyway.
Now, some polls have shown that Dr. Oz has pulled ahead after trailing his opponent for weeks. But this does not mean the race is in the bag for the former TV doctor. With less than two weeks remaining before the elections, pretty much anything can happen.
