Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud.
Yesterday's histrionics at the US Capitol yesterday over "J6" was most notable for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's honesty about their purpose. And she uttered it five times.
One of the emerging traits of growing older (I’m 65) is blunt honesty. Our guard goes down with age as we become less concerned about what others around us may think. We blurt unvarnished truths and observations, often impulsively and increasingly inure to their consequences.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has graced the lower House chamber since 1987 and as its leading Democratic official since 2003, will turn 82 on March 26th. And yesterday, during a solemn January 6th commemorative event in the Capitol she said the quiet part about the festivities out loud.
“It is essential that we preserve the narrative of January 6th.”
And she said it five times. At the same event. As reported by her office in the same press release.
From the lead paragraph of her news release on the event yesterday, for which her staff prepared and published a helpful transcription of the Speaker’s remarks:
“Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Senator Schumer, Members of Congress, Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden, and historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham for a moderated conversation to establish and preserve the narrative of January 6th.”
Elsewhere, in full context:
One year later, it is essential that we do not allow anyone to rewrite history or whitewash the gravity of what took place. It is our duty to find the facts of January 6th, to ensure such an assault on our democracy cannot happen again. And it is also our duty to establish and preserve the narrative of that day, and that is what we are doing today. One year later, I remain in awe of the courage of all of you, our Members, not only on that day, but every day since including now, as you share reflections and preserve the truth.
Winston Smith, call your office.
And it is no wonder that Pelosi and her fellow travelers are so intent in cementing their narrative, their version of the “truth.” Most Americans aren’t buying it. Law professor Jonathan Turley:
Pelosi’s concern over the viability of that narrative is well-based as shown by a recent CBS News poll. The majority of the public does not believe that this was an “insurrection” despite the mantra-like repetition of members of Congress and the media. The public saw that terrible day unfold a year ago and saw it for what it was: a protest that became a riot. (For full disclosure, I previously worked as a legal analyst for CBS News).
Not surprisingly, the poll received little comparative coverage on a day when reporters and commentators spoke of “the insurrection” as an undeniable fact. Yet, when CBS asked Americans, they received an answer that likely did not please many. Indeed, CBS did not highlight the answer to the question of whether the day was really a “protest that went too far.” The answer was overwhelming and nonpartisan. Some 76% believe that this was a protest that went too far.
Read the YouGov poll for yourself (disclosure: I participated in this poll). The questionnaire was poorly constructed. It reeks of bias. But it is still illustrative. Turley picked up on it expertly.
Not to be outdone by partisan political pitches by the President and Vice President with absurd comparisons to Pearl Harbor (where 2,400 died) and 9/11 (where nearly 3,000 died), resident MSNBC “historian” Doug Brinkley wasn’t to be outdone. He equates J6 with the Holocaust and lays out the complete narrative.
But we have film footage of what happened on January 6, we have proof. Dwight Eisenhower, during World War II made sure all the Holocaust camps were filmed. So, we’ve got the film footage. So, now we’re combating conspiracy theorists, deniers, and some Trumpateers.
But my worry is what do we this and make sure honor this day, this dark stained day every year. So, we’ve got to keep saying January 6. I think this is like December 7 Pearl Harbor, it is like the 9/11 tragedy, and we need to not be afraid to call it the Trump Insurrection of January 6. Because in the end, all roads to what went wrong that day lead to Donald Trump’s ill behavior, his anti-democratic stance he took, the big lie, after the presidential election tallies came in and Joe Biden had won by millions of votes.
Funny thing, Capitol Police have never publicly released all 14,000 hours of video coverage from that day. A federal judge ordered the release of some video over the objection of prosecutors. At least the Holocaust photos were apparently all released.
Suppose genuine historians looked for an event of similar magnitude and characteristics, including an unruly mob that overwhelmed security and police. In that case, they might have stumbled upon this one, a 1974 riot on ten-cent beer night at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland at a baseball game. At least no one was killed nor brandished any weapons other than baseball bats. Much like January 6th, Ashli Babbit excepted.
In all honesty, no one should equate incursions into the Capitol on 1/6/21 with a riot at a 1974 baseball game.
Nor Pearl Harbor. Nor 9/11. And certainly not the Holocaust.
Independent journalist Green Greenwald on his superb Substack platform, perfectly surmised the truth of J6 and partisan attempts to propagandize the event for partisan purposes. You should read the entire post.
That the January 6 riot was some sort of serious attempted insurrection or "coup” was laughable from the start, and has become even more preposterous with the passage of time and the emergence of more facts. The United States is the most armed, militarized and powerful regime in the history of humanity. The idea that a thousand or so Trump supporters, largely composed of Gen X and Boomers, who had been locked in their homes during a pandemic — three of whom were so physically infirm that they dropped dead from the stress — posed anything approaching a serious threat to “overthrow” the federal government of the United States of America is such a self-evidently ludicrous assertion that any healthy political culture would instantly expel someone suggesting it with a straight face.
Putting the events of January 6 into their proper perspective is not to dismiss the fact that it was a lamentable event — any more than opposing the exploitation of 9/11 and exaggeration of the domestic threat of Muslim extremism, which I spent a full decade doing, meant that one was denying the heinousness of that attack. The day after the 1/6 riot, I wrote in this space that “the introduction of physical force into political protest is always lamentable, usually dangerous, and, except in the rarest of circumstances that are plainly inapplicable here, unjustifiable.” I still believe that to be the case. There was nothing virtuous about the 1/6 riot.
But it is typically the case that fear-mongering and deliberate exaggeration of threats has an element of truth to them. Al Qaeda and ISIS really did want to carry out mass-casualty events on U.S. soil. COVID is a fatal virus that can kill people and has done so around the world. There are right-wing extremists in the U.S. bent on using violence to advance their political agenda, just as there are left-wing extremists and anarchist insurrectionary movements and many other types eager to do the same (more destruction was caused by the latter than the former over the last two years, to say nothing of the dozens of journalists physically assaulted by individuals participating in Antifa protests).
Far too many centers of political and economic power benefit from an exaggerated and even false narrative about January 6 to expect it ever to end.
Many of us knew right away after the horrific events of that day that Democrats (and a few Republican useful idiots) would not let this crisis go to waste. House Democrats started within 24 hours with their second impeachment resolution of Donald Trump, accusing him of inciting an armed insurrection, with Trump already scheduled to leave office in 14 days. It was a political charade.
We saw it again over the partisan handling of the so-called special committee to investigate events of January 6th, where Speaker Pelosi, in an unprecedented and brazen move, disallowed Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s choices to serve on the panel. US Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) discredits herself by falsely referring to herself as the “ranking member” of the committee. Nancy Pelosi, not McCarthy, appointed her. No one should look to this kangaroo court (with apologies to kangaroos) for an objective investigation by this panel. Cheney’s false claim has legal ramifications.
We continue to see the narrative again with the questionable treatment of many January 6th rioters and the politicization of the events by the Department of Justice. Many of the accused have been in solitary confinement for more than a year, leading one judge to hold DC jail officials in contempt. Another judge questions the Department of Justice’s “schizophrenic” approach to cases. Former US Rep. and prosecutor Bob Livingston (R-LA) has well outlined due process concerns.
The narrative last year also included using 25,000 National Guard troops activated as political pawns for Pelosi’s drama, ostensibly to protect the Capitol. No evidence has emerged that another “attack” was imminent. It was also originally sealed off by 3 square miles of fencing and concertina wire. The Capitol is still closed to tourists, not only because of Covid but because too many staff fear being triggered by the return of Capitol visitors. Again, we must keep the narrative alive, which apparently includes maintaining the Capitol as a college-style safe space.
You know, keeping people like you from enjoying a tour of your building.
But the building and specifically Statuary Hall - the old House Chamber, until the current chamber opened in 1860 - was opened on January 6th to CNN, of course.
As polling suggests, there is still much that we do not know. The Capitol Police have released only some of the video from the January 6th travesty. Speaker Pelosi has never made public her phone and other records of the day or those of House officials accountable to her. Testimony between the House Sergeant and Arms and others conflict.
It might conflict with their narrative, which includes pushing partisan legislation for an unconstitutional federalization of US elections. They’re not even trying to hide it.
By all means, let’s have an objective and thorough investigation of all that went wrong on January 6th. Let’s include the poorly-advised “Stop the Steal” rally. Let’s include the Capitol Police’s unpreparedness. What about how Capitol officials handled requests for federal troops? And how about a full airing of 14,000 hours of videos? One more thing: the handling of January 6th perpetrators. I’d like to know what happened to one of the ringleaders that day, Ray Epps, who has all but disappeared after being one of America’s “most wanted” and among the first to violently breach the Capitol. But I fear we will never get the whole story, other than the narrative.
We certainly aren’t going to get it from the January 6th Committee or the heavily politicized Department of Justice. The media seems disinterested primarily, if not part of the narrative.
Yesterday, January 6th, was a sad and tragic day. And the real victim isn’t the members of Congress and staff who were at the Capitol that day. The real victim is the truth.
And indeed, as the Washington Post loves to tell us, democracy dies in darkness.
Overlooked point: Pelosi and company used the corpse of Officer Sicknick to deceive the public that he had been murdered by rioters rather than having died of natural causes the following day. They dishonored the sacredness of lying in repose under the Capitol dome, as has been reserved for exceptional Americans including Rosa Parks and Billy Graham. That's how far they'll go to build "the narrative ".