During my recent Florida vacation, I read two books. The first was Unfettered, an autobiography by United States Senator John Fetterman (copyright 2025). I found it to be both interesting and easy to read. In this review, [brackets] are used to denote the page or pages where the various quotes were observed.
I first became aware of Fetterman in the lead up to his senatorial election in 2022, when he was the Democrat nominee for the U.S. senate from Pennsylvania, running against the Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz (of TV fame). At that time Fetterman was recovering from a stroke, which affected his ability to coherently speak – surely a hinderance to a successful senatorial campaign. That fact, coupled with his unconventional dress code and Dr. Oz’s name recognition doomed his campaign, as far as I was concerned.
After his opening words (“Good night, everybody”) during his one and only televised debate with Dr. Oz, I was even more sure. After all, that is the job of a U.S. senator – to debate and influence – and he was struggling just to say “Hello.” I found it almost impossible to believe that the citizens of Pennsylvania would elect him. I was wrong.
John Karl Fetterman was born on August 15, 1969, at the same hospital where Taylor Swift was later born (Saint Joseph’s in Reading, Pennsylvania). John went on to obtain a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School. Taylor Swift went on to sing about her love life.
In his book, Fetterman tells how he then gravitated from a cushy job in risk management at a branch office of Chubb Insurance in New Haven, Connecticut, to the basement of an abandoned church in an abandoned town – Braddock, Pennsylvania, a decaying steel-town on the Monongahela River southwest of Pittsburgh; where he served as mayor for thirteen years (2006-2019).
Mayor Fetterman
As I read about Fetterman’s years as mayor, I started to develop an appreciation for what drove him. It did not seem to be any kind of “power trip.” He seemed to have a genuine concern for his constituents – those living in “the ashes of Braddock blight” [36]. He agreed with historian Roy Lubove’s observation that “the major institutions of America had failed the worker” [28]. In that sense, he seemed to share a bit of Trump’s “Make America Great” ideology.
In Chapter 4 (Left to Die), Fetterman wrote about the six dates that he had tattooed on one of his arms “to serve as a permanent, indelible reminder of those who had been murdered during a spate of horrible violence in Braddock,” during 2006, 2007, and 2008 [39-40]. In the remainder of that chapter, he wrote about the six individuals who had died (e.g., Christopher Williams, on 01-16-06, after delivering two pepperoni pizzas).
Lieutenant Governor Fetterman (2019-2023)
After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 2016, Fetterman was elected to the largely ceremonial position of lieutenant governor in 2019. The position did have one important job that Fetterman focused on – he was the chairperson of the five-member state Board of Pardons.
In Chapters 7 (Pardon Me) and 8 (The Shapiro Affair) Fetterman wrote about his work on the pardons board, the punitive nature of Pennsylvania’s criminal justice system, and his clashes with Josh Shapiro – then the state’s attorney general and a member of the Board of Pardons; now the governor of Pennsylvania – over who deserved to be pardoned. Fetterman tended to be more inclined than Shapiro to give a prisoner a second chance. After one hearing, Fetterman “called Shapiro a ‘fucking asshole’ – not realizing the microphone was still on …” [84]. Their relationship apparently has “never recovered” [86].
Fetterman versus Oz
In Chapters 10 (Are You Nuts?) and Chapter 11 (Already Dead), Fetterman wrote about the stroke he had on May 13, 2022 – four days before the Pennsylvania senate primary.
In Chapters 12 (The Troll Patrol), 13 (The Siege), and 14 (“Good Night, Everybody”), Fetterman wrote about his senatorial campaign against Dr. Oz. He began Chapter 12 by noting, “One candidate flat on his ass because of a stroke and unable to campaign as he recovered. The other candidate a famous talk show host once labeled ‘Doctor Poop’ for his meticulous pursuit of the perfect bowel movement and the peddler of so many false claims about fanciful diet supplements that he was fined millions of dollars” [115].
The above quote summarizes how Fetterman’s campaign defeated Oz. They painted Oz as “something of a charlatan, a flimflam man who could not be trusted” … whose TV show “straddled the line between serious medical advice and quackery” [119-120]. His young staff, the “Troll Patrol,” used social media to work that angle, along with Oz’s alleged carpetbagger status (from New Jersey). That strategy, along with an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey, four days before the election, turned out to be enough to overcome his debate performance.
Fetterman’s Depression
The main non-political topic in the book involved Fetterman’s depression, which manifested itself publicly when he was treated at Walter Reed Hospital during his first year in the senate.
Chapters 16 (Election Blues), 17 (The Crack-Up), and 18 (Coming to Get Me) describe this part of Fetterman’s story.
“… I was undeniably Fox News’s Enemy Number One. Their attacks got to me, no doubt contributing to the depression that was unraveling me. Vegetable. Moron. Retard. Depression is a dark and terrible devil. It laughs at you without remorse. You go from standing to sitting down and then the devil rides you into bed. Sadness overwhelms you” [xiv].
Chapter 19 (You are Loved) talks about Fetterman’s cure. “… it was time to tell my depression to go fuck itself. Children need their daddy. … A daddy needs his children” [190]. “You can take medication to tame your mental health issues. You can go to therapy. You can eat right and sleep right and exercise right. These are essential. But for me, the best antidote to depression is love, the one emotion it cannot screw with” [191].
John Fetterman – Today
My perception of John Fetterman has flipped a bit, as his health and speech have improved. He continues to be his own man – representing his Pennsylvania constituents in his unique manner. He is among the very few Democrats that is publicly critical of his parties move to the far left. He seems to place country over party at times. Below are three quotes from Chapter 20 (Still Here):
“I’ve drunk deeply of the venom of both the left and the right. And as a connoisseur, I can confirm that the most poisonous, the bitterest, is from the far left. The right tells me I suck and call me names. The far left calls for my death” [199].
“An open border is not compassionate, it is chaos, both for those immigrants and for the citizens impacted …” [201].
“Trump is mercurial. Trump is unpredictable. With him, anything can happen. Whatever the political risk, meeting with him was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania” [203].
Doctor Oz
Doctor Oz had been my man. Oprah’s endorsement of Fetterman four days before the election may have been the coup de grace, as she was largely responsible for Oz’s television career. Fetterman speculated that Oprah endorsed him because “she considered Oz kind of a dick” [157]. I think she may have endorsed Fetterman because he was the Democrat candidate. Doctor Oz went onto become the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services during Trump’s second term.
My wife was a fan of The Dr. Oz Show. On Friday, March 10, 2017, while attending the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, we watched two tapings of his show at the ABC-TV studios at 320 West 66th Street. The 10 AM taping’s topic was acid reflux and a diet to avoid it. The 3 PM taping started with some information on how colon cancer was becoming more prevalent in millennials. Dr. John LaPook from CBS News was interviewed. Dr. Josh Axe also spoke about how some oils can prevent colon cancer. Everyone in the audience got a copy of Axe’s book Essential Oils: Ancient Medicine. I am not sure what segments offered serious medical advice (versus quackery). VIP audience members (who attended both tapings) got to have their picture taken with Dr. Oz. We are pictured below.
