On Fetterman's debate disaster

 Amid debate season, I have a canned line.  An election is a hiring process.  (I wrote a book about that.)  The campaign is the job interview.  However, debating, particularly as it is conducted in modern politics, has nothing to do with the performance of the job.  It is as though a law firm asks prospective hires to come in for interviews, and amid the interview, the committee hands each recent law school grad a violin with a demand that the interviewee play the Brandenburg Concertos.  It is precisely that nonsensical.

Yet mostly, debates do not matter.  They only matter on those rare occasions that a candidate with a real shot blows it so badly that it becomes one of those legendary moments.  And even then, consider the legendary moments.  You're no Jack Kennedy.  Bush Sr. won anyway.  Who am I?  Why Am I here?  Perot had no chance anyway.

Oops.

That was classic.

Mostly, though, debates don't matter, which is just as well, as they have no business mattering.  Ignore them.  They are as pointless as they should be.

But yikes.  That Pennsylvania Senate debate was a contest between a guy with clear brain damage and also a man who tragically had a stroke and is on the road to recovery.  And yes, that's the oldest joke in the book, but what, you expect originality?  Under no circumstances can I support medical quackery nor the purveyors of it.  Yet... yikes.  Strokes are about as scary as medical events can get.  What they do to you varies, and the extent to which the stroke affected Fetterman's cognitive abilities rather than his communication is something for doctors, but it is hard for any non-medical professional to assess.

That was just horrifying, and if we're honest, that was Rick Perry/Admiral Stockdale throughout.  Why?  Because he had a stroke.

My normal answer is that debates don't matter.  That was not a normal debate.

Scroll down for the crass joke

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Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash while running for a Missouri Senate seat against John Aschroft.  Carnahan won, posthumously, so his wife, Jean, was appointed to the seat.  If Fetterman wanted to win, he shouldn't have survived the stroke, or maybe he should have pulled an Elvis and faked his own death.

I told you it was crass.  I warned you.  You scrolled anyway.  So you see, it's really all your fault.  Not mine, yours.  I take no responsibility.

Here.  Have some music.  Jeff Lang, doing "Elvis Is Dead," live.  I debated this, or Living Colour.  Vernon Reid?  Jeff Lang?  To very different guitar virtuosos.