Posted on 12/01/2025 1:41:48 PM PST by Eleutheria5
“I’m thankful for my health” is a common refrain heard around the Thanksgiving table. But for Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, the feeling is a bit more complicated. David J. Garrow reviews the senator’s frank memoir, Unfettered.
“An October 25 debate against Oz was a disaster. ‘My nerves beat me down. I had wilted. I’d choked,’ and in its wake ‘I had mentally collapsed.’ Now ‘I never thought I would win’ the race to become a senator, which felt all well and good since ‘I didn’t deserve to be one.’ But win Fetterman did, by a margin of more than 250,000 votes, yet that evening he felt ‘no joy. No sense of accomplishment,’ and the next morning ‘I stayed in bed as long as I could,’ since his bed ‘had become my only safe harbor.’ Wife Gisele knew that John had had ‘a nervous breakdown,’ but since ‘I was a stubborn asshole,’ Fetterman refused to seek treatment.”
“Finally, in late February, Fetterman was admitted to D.C.’s Walter Reed...
“To call Unfettered robustly and indeed relentlessly self-critical risks understatement. ‘I am not collegial, and as a senator, you need to be to get anything real done,’ Fetterman admits, although he has bonded with young Alabama Republican Katie Britt and Vermont Democrat Peter Welch, who is older than Fetterman’s dad.
“Fetterman’s fervent support for democratic, multiethnic Israel has earned him intense hostility from faux progressives whose anti-Zionism often barely cloaks their latent anti-Semitism, but Unfettered offers no apologies. ‘I don’t take positions for my own self-interest. I take positions based on what I believe is right. I know this has cost me support from a significant part of my base, and I’m well aware that it may cost me my seat’ if he chooses to run for reelection in 2028. “I’m completely at peace..."
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.substack.com ...
Surprisingly he turned out to be a better Senator than anyone ever expected.
(but of course if we had a random Citizen lottery system to pick senators we would without doubt get better senators than we have now)
Reminds me of I, Claudius. A stuttering, low-ranking aristocrat becomes Caesar right after they kill Calligula, the insane, sister-humping and murdering “god,” and to everyone’s surprise, Claudius is capable and honest.
Great series. Regretted missing some...
That was on the old public television, with Alistair Cooke. Before it became a wasteland.
I think it was based on a book by Robert Graves (poet, scholar, WW I vet).
Only marginally. He still votes in lockstep with the democrats on most issues.
It was just the democrats sadistic government shutdown that he broke with them on.
Still, as democrats go, that was better than most.
Figure out a way to make it cheat proof and honest, and I have been saying that this is the way to go for years.
Randomly pull a name from the district, and if they are ineligible or refuse, pull until you get someone. Allow no person to be picked for service twice.
That alone would solve a whole helluva lot of issues.
Make Congress meet remotely and that will maime the lobbyists ease of access.
Ah, yes, the old Mantelpiece Theater. (That's what I used to call it.)
He also refuses to call his constituents “nazis” just because they vote Republican sometimes.
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