John Fetterman Tries to Play Enforcer, Issues Republicans a Biden Impeachment Challenge
One of the saddest spectacles in Congress became sadder on Wednesday.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — who is still mentally impaired as he recovers from a 2022 stroke — puffed out his chest, played the tough guy and taunted Republicans over their plans to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
“Go ahead, do it. I dare you,” Fetterman said, according to NBC News.
The first-term senator relied on an iPad to communicate with reporters.
“Sometimes you just gotta call their bulls***,” Fetterman said of House Republicans.
“I’m just tired of a couple of them over there, talking like they’re hard-a**es,” he added. “They just keep pushing it.”
Over the years, the U.S. Congress has seen its share of theatrics and false bravado. In the early 19th century, for instance, the slight-in-stature Virginia slaveholder John Randolph stalked the House floor with a whip in hand.
That sort of behavior, calculated to project authority and intimidate opponents, did not end well for Randolph and his allies.
Fetterman’s condition, of course, makes it impossible to take seriously his impeachment challenge or anything else he says.
In the midst of his rant, however, Fetterman stumbled onto two substantive points, one of which contradicts the other.
First, he coarsely predicted that impeachment “would just be like a big circle jerk on the fringe right” and would saddle Republicans with a political “loser.” Hence the dare.
Second, he used the talk of impeachment to point out former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles.
“Your man has what, three or four indictments now?” Fetterman said. “Trump has a mug shot, and he’s been impeached twice.”
Surely it does not require great mental fitness to see the contradiction in these two statements.
Impeachment will cost you at the polls, Fetterman said, so only a fool would consider it. In fact, we did it twice.
One scratches one’s head.
Then there are the politically driven indictments brought by a desperate establishment.
Yes, Trump has a mug shot. So did Martin Luther King Jr. People have noticed.
Meanwhile, time will soon tell whether House Republicans have the good sense to call Fetterman’s pathetic bluff.
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