John Fetterman remains voluntarily committed at Walter Reed Hospital undergoing treatment for severe depression. When will he be back? Who knows? Will he resign? You’re an evil ableist bigot for even suggesting it!
With no end in sight for Fetterman’s treatment, Pennsylvania is down a senator in the U.S. Senate… or is it? In recent weeks, Fetterman has allegedly co-sponsored legislation, which raised eyebrows because… obviously… how is he doing that while being treated for depression?
Well, that’s where the New York Times steps in. On Thursday, the Times really expected us to suspend disbelief when it tried to report that Fetterman is actually running the show from the Cuckoo’s Nest with McMurphy, Chief Bromden, Harding, Cheswick, and the gang.
Oh, and of course, criticizing those who dare question how he can perform the duties of a senator from a rubber room without any sharp objects.
“[H]is absence from the Senate has caught the attention of detractors who have publicly questioned Mr. Fetterman’s condition and suggested that his diagnosis renders him unfit to serve,” the New York Times bemoans. Those darn Republicans asking questions, expecting senators to do their jobs!
Oh, but it gets worse. The New York Times promptly explained how it is possible that Fetterman can do his job. And their answer is that being a senator is actually quite easy because it’s not like senators do much work.
“Meetings with constituent groups have continued as usual, albeit without the traditional few minutes of glad-handing by the senator at the end. But in the Senate, a staff-run institution even in the best of times, that is hardly atypical,” the New York Times explained.
Related: Fetterman’s Office Releases Photos of Senator ‘at Work,’ but Are They Staged?
Did you catch that? The Senate is “a staff-run institution,” I guess that means that senators are just nonplayer characters (NPCs) just wandering around for our amusement.
Oh, but it gets better!
“It is not unusual for lawmakers to be told by members of their staff, sometimes after the fact, what bills they are co-sponsoring,” the New York Times humorously claimed. “With the exception of calls to cabinet officials or meetings with the chief executives of companies that are important to their states, there are few meetings that cannot be handled by senior staff.”
Ahhh, so you see, you might elect a senator, but it’s really the unelected staff that matters most… Senators are, according to the New York Times, just figureheads… puppets, if you will, doing whatever their staff tells them. The paper rambled on for many paragraphs trying to explain how it’s actually quite easy for Fetterman to do the job of a senator while being treated for depression. We’re expected to believe that it’s completely normal for senators to be told after the fact what legislation they’re sponsoring. Really? And we’re not supposed to feel insulted? This was literally the best excuse that the New York Times could come up with.
So everything is fine. John Fetterman has it all covered, but it doesn’t matter anyway because, you know, senators are kind of useless puppets anyway. Move along. Nothing to see here. Just pretend like Fetterman didn’t lie throughout the campaign by telling us he was “fit to be serving.”
