Fetterman: Body and Soul

By BRUCE LOWITT

Sen. John Fetterman admits he’s using a body double to take his place in Congress, showing off his new line of clothing under the label “Liberal Livery” – and has revealed that he’s one of more than a dozen senators employing dopplegangers.

“The reason is simple,” Pennsylvania’s freshman senator said. “I discovered, not long after taking office in January, that half of my colleagues either sit around doing nothing or stir shit up by making pointless speeches and pronouncements. And the public barely pays attention. In other words, nothing gets done by anyone.

“So I figured, as long as nobody’s voting on anything of importance, why waste my time sitting around listening to all the crap being spewed by phony-baloney politicians when I could be out trademarking and marketing the cool style of clothes I already wear while my body double pisses off the Republicans already ignoring everything essential, namely running the government.”

Fetterman, D-Tattoos, has become famous for the hoodie-and-shorts outfits he wears around the Capitol. He still wears a suit while in the Senate chamber, although that may change now that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-Pince-nez, has decided to relax the dress code and begin wearing leather pants.

Fetterman wouldn’t identify all the other senators using body doubles because he has promised some of them secrecy, but he did name Ted Cruz, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, Tommy Tuberville and Joni Ernst.

“Cruz, he found one of the three people living in Luckenbach, Texas, a guy on a street corner who looked exactly like him, holding a cardboard No job, no home, please help sign,” Fetterman said. “Grassley’s guy is actually a discarded audio-animatronic Reagan statue from the Disney Hall of Presidents. Graham employed one of the drag queens from Diva Royale in Myrtle Beach. Hawley hired an incel from Rockhurst, the Kansas City prep school he attended. Sanders was easy – a Catskills comedian who hadn’t worked since Grossinger’s closed. McConnell borrowed a Loggerhead turtle from the Kentucky Reptile Zoo. Tuberville’s a tackling dummy he swiped from the Auburn football equipment closet. And Ernst, I don’t know how she did it but she’s put a fetus in her place.”

What amazed him, Fetterman said, is that it was QAnon, the belief system of conspiracy theories, that inspired him to use a body double. “Those deep-state bigots usually don’t know how to tie their own shoes or find their way out of a bathroom,” he said.

“But when those schmucks – am I using that word right? – started spreading the rumor that I must’ve had a stand-in because of my major strides in recovering from the stroke I suffered in 2022, I figured, ‘Hey, that could actually work.’ They did something smart for once, even if they didn’t mean it.”

Fetterman declined to identify who has been taking his place in Congress but acknowledged it took him three months of auditioning candidates to find one who matched his 6-foot-8, 275-pound frame and had similar facial features. “After that it took just a couple of weeks to train him to act like a senator,” he said.

“Actually it took just two days. After that it was a matter of convincing him not to freelance, so to speak, to break him of the habit of trying to be a super-authentic senator by throwing around words like ‘coercion’ and ‘extortion’ and ‘illicit’ and ‘scapegoat’ and ‘bribe’ and ‘defamation’ and ‘solicit’ and ‘persecution’ and ‘retaliation’ and ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘demagogue’ and ‘pussy’. That last one was the toughest.”