Topic: Media Research Center
We've shown how the Media Research Center held off on attacking Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman until it decided that his stroke could be exploited as a partisan issue to help his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz. Curtis Houck spent an Oct. 17 post, headlined "CLOWN SHOW," coimplaining that a Philadelphia newspaper endorsed Fetterman over Oz, despite the former being "mentally and physically incapacitated":
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.”
[...]
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.”
Houck huffed in an Oct. 20 post that one TV segment "wrapped on the Pennsylvania Senate race and ignored Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) mental incapacity."
Clay Waters played a bizarre round of whataboutism in an Oct. 21 post comparing Fetterman to ... Herschel Walker?
The New York Times drips with understanding when it comes to the health problems plaguing Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, but their sympathy turns to snideness when it comes to the dissociative identity disorder diagnosis of Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s Friday edition story on Walker, a football legend, appeared under this snide headline: “Walker Says He Has ‘Overcome’ Mental Illness, but It’s Not So Simple, Experts Say.”
Stolberg seemed to hint that Walker was using his mental illness as a convenient excuse.
[...]
The problem is that when the impaired Democrat Fetterman faced questions, the media, including the Times, circled the wagons in his defense. Some outlets even went after mainstream media reporters who dared question Fetterman’s fitness for office.
The same paper that pushes “Long COVID” and demands surgery for “transgender” teens to cure gender dysphoria has suddenly recovered its skepticism about medical disorders.
Waters didn't mention how his employer, along woith the rest of the right-wing media, circled their wagons around Walker after he was credibily accused of paying for an abortion.
(Bill D'Agostino similarly complained that "the media eagerly flooded the airwaves with the latest tidbits about Walker’s scandal, they have been incredibly protective of another embattled Senate candidate: John Fetterman, who’s running as a Democrat in Pennsylvania.")
Rich Noyes spent an Oct. 21 post noting that "Alone among the three broadcast morning shows, only ABC’s Good Morning America covered President Biden’s campaign appearance with Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman in Pennsylvania on Thursday, and correspondent Rachel Scott admitted the President is unpopular with voters and unwanted by most Democratic candidates," grumbling that "while ABC at least talked about the President’s problems, Scott neglected to mention Fetterman’s ongoing health problems which have put the race in peril for Democrats, and showed no clips of Fetterman speaking."
Houck returned to claim in an Oct. 25 post that CBS is trying to "pull Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) across the finish line" (you know, like how the MRC is trying to pull Walker across the finish line):
Just as the liberal broadcast networks tried to keep former Gov. Charlie Crist’s (D-FL) campaign afloat, CBS Mornings did its best to pull Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) across the finish line in his close race against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. Thanks to chief campaign and election correspondent Robert Costa, CBS had one simple message for voters weighing Fetterman’s health in their vote: let it go.
Costa spent the second half of his piece on Fetterman’s health, leading with a clip of the mentally and physically limited Fetterman stammering his way through one of his rare stump speeches.
[...]
Costa added that “Fetterman’s use of a captioning device will be on display during the debate” and posed the question to passerby’s in State College, Pennsylvania this past weekend.
After one person said no one “should be shamed for using things that makes things more accessible” and another seemed indifferent, Costa brought in an expert from the left-wing Poynter and cited a CBS News poll to argue alleged talk about issues with Fetterman’s health need to end[.]
This was all setup before a debate between Fetterman and Oz, which the MRC exploited too. More on that soon.
