The opinion and editorial staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer have deemed Democrat John Fetterman the winner of Tuesday night’s Pennsylvania U.S. Senate debate against Republican Mehmet Oz despite evidence his past stroke has cognitively handicapped him.
As Breitbart News reported, Fetterman repeatedly struggled in the debate against Oz, from his mispronunciation of certain words to his long pauses. At times, Fetterman would not even address questions asked of him by the moderators and would revert to talking points. However, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fetterman claimed the debate by a narrow margin.
Judging on a scale of one to 10, the outlet averaged the scores of 11 editorial staff writers, giving Fetterman a slight edge over Oz: 4.3 to 4.1. As to why Fetterman edged out Oz, the only explanation could be political bias, particularly from columnist Will Bunch and editor Devi Lockwood.
“The directness of Fetterman’s support for a living wage, unions, college debt relief, compassionate immigration policies, and ensuring reproductive rights showed this was a debate between a candidate with a heart issue and an opponent who barely has one,” Bunch wrote in his 6/10 rating for Fetterman.
“Hearing Fetterman say that Roe v. Wade should be the law led me to audibly sigh in relief. Abortion should be a choice between a pregnant person and their doctor,” Lockwood wrote in her 7/10 rating for Fetterman.
When it came to Oz, the far left duo of Bunch and Lockwood gave him a rating of two/10 and one/10, respectively.
“For all the talk of Fetterman’s stroke, Oz had the night’s worst gaffe when he said abortion is between ‘a woman, her doctor, and local political leaders,'” wrote Bunch.
“His plan to “unleash the energy beneath our feet” is frankly frightening. I’d encourage Oz to listen to the parents of kids with leukemia who live near fracking sites. Also: leaving abortion up to the states will create pockets of the country that feel like the The Handmaid’s Tale. No thank you,” wrote Lockwood.
Oz even received a rating of 0 from opinion editor-at-large Paul Davies, who argued that the celebrity doctor “came across as a fast-talking used car salesman.”
“The second Oz said that he would support the return of the twice-impeached former president who incited a deadly insurrection and tried to overturn a free and fair election, he disqualified himself from holding public office and his score went to zero,” wrote Davies.
The highest rating overall (eight/10) came in favor for Oz from contributing columnist Kyle Sammin.
“Focusing on a theme of moderation and anti-extremism, Oz explained his positions well and tried his best to contrast them with Fetterman’s, which he called ‘radical,” wrote Sammin. “Occasionally, Oz perhaps drove too hard at his opponent, which might have the effect of evoking sympathy for the Democrat.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s positive rating for Fetterman stands in stark contrast to a WPXI online poll that viewers overwhelmingly believed Oz had the better performance during the debate – 82 percent to 17 percent.
Donald Trump Jr. adviser Arthur Schwartz noted the Inquirer‘s swing for Fetterman indicates local media did not adequately do its job to inform the public about his medical condition.
“If we had competent local news outlets in big states like Pennsylvania it never would have gotten to this — where we needed a debate to see exactly how disastrous Fetterman’s neurological condition truly is,” he said.