Hello, goodnight everybody. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) may have returned to the U.S. Senate, but contrary to the media’s attempt to paint a picture of a triumphant comeback, things really aren’t going all that well.
Following his discharge from Walter Reed, Fetterman eventually resumed his senatorial duties and was presented with an opportunity to showcase his triumphant return by chairing the lesser-known Senate Subcommittee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. The media was poised to assure the public of his capability to fulfill his Senate responsibilities with the appropriate fanfare. However, Fetterman’s first major outing served as a painful reminder of the cognitive impairments he suffered.
You can read about that debacle here: John Fetterman’s First Subcommittee Hearing: A Train Wreck in Slow Motion
If there was anything Fetterman’s first subcommittee hearing made clear, it was that despite his extended absence from the Senate, there appeared to be no visible advancements in his stroke recovery. So, the media instead opted to paint him as a hero for being so open about his bout with depression, hoping we’d forget about or excuse his obvious frailties.
One cannot help but notice a shift in the media’s strategy since that calamitous hearing in mid-April. Fetterman has discreetly made appearances at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, as well as a Senate Banking Committee hearing. The media took no interest. There was no extensive coverage of him back in the saddle, doing the business he was elected to do.
The media is certainly in a tough position: to cover Fetterman, or not to cover Fetterman. That is the question, indeed, but the latest answer to it hasn’t been any better.
In a hearing on Wednesday, Fetterman made an effort to interrogate the former CEO of the recently collapsed Silicon Valley Bank, and, as anyone could have predicted, it didn’t go well. So, Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein decided to report on Fetterman’s “interrogation” but completely rewrote Fetterman’s garbled rambling as coherent sentences in an attempt to pass it off as a direct quote. Stein quoted Fetterman as saying, “Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Republicans seem to be more preoccupied with SNAP requirements for hungry people than protecting taxpayers that have to bail out these banks.”
Stein’s tweet curiously only included a photo, not a video of the exchange. One might be inclined to assume from the tweet alone that Fetterman is doing well, speaking well, and has recovered. Things are all good and shiny in Fetterman-land. What a Cinderella story!
What Fetterman actually said was, “Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we sale [sic] your bank—er, with billions of your bank? Because they see me [sic] pre-preoccupied when then [sic] SNAP, uh, in the requirements for works [sic] for hungry people, but not about protecting the— protecting tax papers [sic] you know, that will bail the matter [sic] whatever does [sic] about a bank to crash it.”
The video is painful to watch.
John Fetterman participates in a Senate Banking Committee hearing with the former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. pic.twitter.com/uKILMfuilN
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 16, 2023
As someone who often transcribes the words of elected officials, I know that accuracy is important but there are also considerations for clarity. There is little harm in using ellipses to skip over a portion of a quote that is irrelevant or an official stumbling momentarily while trying to make a point. But Stein fabricated an entire quote and attempted to pass it off as something Fetterman actually said. Did you notice that Stein even took an earlier mention of Republicans and spliced it into his bogus quote?
Assuming Fetterman doesn’t resign after the 2024 elections (to avoid a special election in a year likely to be good for Republicans), is this what the media is going to do for the next two to six years? Stein ultimately deleted his tweet, but that doesn’t change the fact that the media put themselves in a position where they must cover Fetterman to prove he’s doing the job he claimed he was capable of doing. Will the media keep trying to gloss over his cognitive impairment? How can they? They can’t keep up the charade forever. Videos don’t lie.
