One of the most covered stories features the latest “hearing” of the one-sided January 6th Select Committee was the presentation of a video production taken mostly of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as they remained cloistered during the Capitol Hill rioting.
As I watched the video outtakes – and as a person with more than 50 years of media experience – I was struck by the fact that this was obviously not an on-the-scene news video. No. No. No. It had all the earmarks of the kind of video that a politician would arrange to have produced for self-serving reasons.
The first clue was how it focused almost exclusively on Pelosi and Schumer — even though there were others – including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – were in the room. They were incidental to the primary purpose of the video.
I also observed how the cinematographer and subjects – Pelosi and Schumer – interacted. There were lots of close-ups. Pelosi and Schumer were aware of the fact that they were on camera. They were playing to the camera. Occasionally, they would look into the camera to see if they were still “on.”
I was also struck by the editing – a careful juxtaposition of Pelosi’s or Schumer’s words and events at the riot scene – even though the events were not happening at the time of the talk.
If their actions and words made them look good, it was largely because they were saying what would make them look good. It was theater, not news coverage.
Of course, the video clips got maximum coverage and positive spin from the left-wing fawning media. The newsies acted as if they were looking at extemporaneous raw coverage of a news event. In reality, it was a politically crafted exercise in political propaganda.
As I watched various segments of the video production, I kept wondering who recorded and edited this obviously political creation. It was on the late-night news on CNN that I learned that everything I believed about the video was true. It was shot and edited for presentation by … Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra — a professional documentary producer. If it looked like a potential political campaign ad for Speaker Pelosi, it is because the same person produced both. The was a political public relations video for the Speaker, Schumer and Democrats in general.
Of course, none of the people who Pelosi and Schumer called were told that they were being recorded. Perhaps they were hoping to obtain some off-the-cuff comments that could be spun against the entire Trump administration.
It was also strategically crafted to serve as the Select Committee’s “October Surprise.” After all, the video was taken more than a year and a half ago – but never surfaced in any hearing until the eve of the midterm elections. That is because it was taken and crafted for that purpose.
Even as Pelosi was creating her one-sided prosecutorial Committee, she well knew of the video that was taken and edited by her daughter. I would be amazed if Pelosi had not worked on the editing. Do you really believe she never saw it until it was released by the Committee?
Since it was Pelosi’s daughter who produced the video, Pelosi had to provide it to the Committee – but she or they waited for almost two years. That is irrefutable evidence of the political underpinning of the video and the entire work of the Select Committee.
At the time Pelosi brought her daughter into the Capitol – at a time when visitors and film crews were not allowed – Pelosi could not have known of many of the events that made her home video more valuable as political propaganda. However, she certainly knew that no matter how and when it was used, she could expect the full support of the biased media to exaggerate its meaning without critical commentary as to how and why it was produced and used.
What we saw in the video was political theater – not news.
So, there ‘tis.