Abcarian: A speech-impaired John Fetterman is better than a fast-talking Mehmet Oz
Former U.S. Rep. John Fetterman was a powerful but controversial speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, in 2008. And he has since been a vocal supporter of Israel.
When I interviewed him last year, he came to my office with his wife, Anne, and his two sons, Kevin and Kevin, and a half-century-old picture of Fetterman and his family on his desk, along with a letter from his wife, thanking me for the interview. In it, she gave me a heartfelt, often-repeated message: “My husband John has been kind and considerate to me… he has been faithful to all of us,” Anne wrote. “And he has been brave, and he has been kind and considerate, and he has been faithful, and he has been brave.”
Anne is not alone in her view of Fetterman. He has always been viewed with admiration and affection by many Americans. He is a genuine and generous man, an honest man, a man of faith. I saw him last year, at a hearing on U.S. support for Israel, and I have long admired him.
We were the audience for his speech that was broadcast live into our living room on Sunday, Aug. 5. In his speech — which he dedicated to his late friend, the late Congressman Abraham Lincoln — Fetterman was eloquent, forceful, and full of truth, compassion, and wisdom.
To me — and to most Americans — Fetterman is a worthy role model. He was one of the first congressional speakers of a nation that has an increasingly deaf world, and he made it clear he was grateful for his opportunity, an opportunity that became more vital after 9/11, when President Bush and his administration were taken into custody and the country was in a state of emergency. That emergency could not begin without his leadership. He, himself, is in the midst of another crisis, of his own making, which he told us
