The Other McCain

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Brain-Damaged John Fetterman Gets ‘Democrat Helper’ Served by CBS News

Posted on | April 3, 2023 | 1 Comment

The best way to understand how liberal media bias operates is to think of it as a heavy wind, blowing into the faces of Republicans — at least a 10-point disadvantage from this hostile headwind — while providing Democrats with an equally powerful tailwind. Everything Republicans do is made to seem wrong and scandalous, while everything Democrats do is noble and courageous. There are occasions when this is so obvious that it’s like the media are serving up Democrat Helper™ — a steaming dish of one-sided bias. Just add a Democrat politician and stir.

Matt Margolis calls attention to how CBS Sunday Morning anchor Jane Pauley did this in her recent interview with John Fetterman, the Democrat who was “elected” U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania despite suffering traumatic brain damage from a stroke shortly before the Democratic primary last May. Shortly after he was inaugurated in January, it became apparent that Fetterman was incapable of fulfilling the duties of his office, and in February his staff came up with the genius idea of concealing the senator’s cognitive incapacity by having him admitted to Walter Reed for treatment of depression. Does anyone seriously believe that Fetterman’s biggest problem is a mood disorder?

Let us stipulate that a stroke as severe as the one Fetterman suffered could damage every aspect of his neurological function, including mood regulation. But the real problem — the reason Fetterman should resign, to allow Pennsylvania to have functional representation in the Senate — is that his cognitive abilities (which perhaps were never stellar) have been so impaired as to leave him unable even to speak coherently or process information. And what CBS did to conceal this was to carefully edit Paulie’s interview with Fetterman, using an obvious trick: Two cameras were used in the interview, one with a tight close-up of Fetterman, and the second with a wider shot, and whenever Fetterman speaks, they cut between the two shots, as if this is being done to add visual interest to the interview, rather than to edit out moments of babbling incoherence.

 

There is never any segment during the interview where Fetterman is shown speaking in a single shot for more than five or 10 seconds consecutively. And if you watch carefully, these interview excerpts constitute a fairly small share of the 10-minute piece, much of which is filled with Paulie narrating a tale of Fetterman’s “struggle,” intended to frame this as the saga of a hero courageously overcoming misfortune.

As much as anyone might lament Fetterman’s misfortune, however, it is certainly not evident that he has overcome the brain damage he suffered from his stroke last year, and Jane Paulie’s interview cannot be regarded as an honest depiction of Fetterman’s current condition. The CBS segment is propaganda, the whole point of which is to help Democrats maintain the fiction that Fetterman is capable of functioning as a U.S. Senator, so that they can avoid the risk and expense of a special election to fill the seat, if Fetterman were compelled to resign.



 

 

Category: CBS, Pennsylvania, Senate

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One Response to “Brain-Damaged John Fetterman Gets ‘Democrat Helper’ Served by CBS News”

  1. News of the Week (April 9th, 2023) | The Political Hat
    April 13th, 2023 @ 4:32 am

    […] Brain-Damaged John Fetterman Gets ‘Democrat Helper’ Served by CBS News The best way to understand how liberal media bias operates is to think of it as a heavy wind, blowing into the faces of Republicans — at least a 10-point disadvantage from this hostile headwind — while providing Democrats with an equally powerful tailwind. Everything Republicans do is made to seem wrong and scandalous, while everything Democrats do is noble and courageous. There are occasions when this is so obvious that it’s like the media are serving up Democrat Helper™ — a steaming dish of one-sided bias. Just add a Democrat politician and stir. […]