Major newspapers are prone to endorse Democrats. It’s almost as predictable as Joe Biden liking ice cream or Donald Trump posting on social media.
But one published Sunday in The Philadelphia Inquirer caught our eye, as while it wasn’t surprising that they endorsed the mentally and physically incapacitated Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) for Senate, but rather how they ironically claimed that it’s Fetterman’s opponent, Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who’s the “wholly unprepared” person to assume office.
The subhead was comical: “The Republican nominee, Mehmet Oz, is wholly unprepared to be the commonwealth’s U.S. senator.”
Like those “As Seen on TV” commercials, there’s more! Check out the lead sentence: “By many measures, the first two years of the Biden administration have been fruitful for Pennsylvania.”
If the economy wasn’t so painful with grocery store prices soaring, high gas prices, and paychecks becoming shorter, it’d be funny. But it’s not.
What examples did The Inquirer provide? “Prescription drugs,” money for “highways and bridges,” and “clean-energy investments.” Don’t call us experts, but that doesn’t sound like it addresses food and energy prices, rent, or rising crime.
The editorial board then cut to the chase about “why it is crucial for Pennsylvania voters to elect John Fetterman to the U.S. Senate in November,” citing the need for “protecting abortion rights and restoring the enhanced child tax credit, which reduced hunger and poverty in our state and across the nation.”
But didn’t they just say the last “two years...have been fruitful?”
Only two paragraphs in the middle were spent on his stroke and, predictably, the paper dismissed concerns and argued it “should not be inherently disqualifying” as sitting Senate Democrats Ben Ray Lujan (NM) and Chris Van Hollen (MD) have recently suffered strokes.
“There is no reason Fetterman cannot serve effectively after his stroke. Fetterman said that one of the most significant challenges of his recovery involves auditory processing — a condition in which his comprehension of certain words and phrases is occasionally delayed,” they argued.
Adding that it only took him “a few seconds to ensure that he has understood a questioner correctly” and then a few “more to collect his thoughts and find the right words,” the left-wing rag insisted such a level of incapacity won’t keep him from “know[ing] what his values are and...communicating them.”
The Inquirer painted a picture of Oz being the one whose unable to take care of himself. As they did at the onset, their reasons for loathing Oz have nothing to do with the economy, gas prices, inflation, or crime (i.e. the issues that matter to voters).
Instead, they lied about Oz having “refused to commit to opposing a national abortion ban” (even though he has said it should be left up to the states) and suggested he was a far-right conspiracy theorist regarding Donald Trump and January 6, 2021 (despite the fact that he would have certified 2020 election results).
Add in their gripes about his positions on health care and welfare and it, again, had nothing to do with the top concerns of voters.
The Inquirer ended with Obama-like gush for Fetterman, swooning over him as someone who possesses “an abundance of the kind of values and priorities that are needed to move the nation forward” and “would bring to Washington a ground-level appreciation for the challenges facing Pennsylvanians.”
