It is amazing how everyone can know that something is true when in reality, it is not. This is best illustrated by quotes. Everyone knows that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes states, “Elementary, my dear Watson,” Humphrey Bogart told his pianist to “Play it again, Sam,” and Tarzan told Jane, “Me Tarzan, You Jane.” And everyone would be wrong! These quotes were never stated by those they were accredited to.
Once an expression gets fixed into the public consciousness, it is stuck there. Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was claimed to have said, “I can see Russia from my house!” In an interview with ABC News, she actually said, “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.” It was comedian Tina Fey who came up with the “I can see Russia from my house” remark while impersonating Palin on Saturday Night Live. Palin’s actual remark has sunk through the memory hole and been replaced by Fey’s comedic slander as the actual statement.
Democrats also get tarred and feathered with false quotes. Al Gore could never quite dig out from the “I invented the internet” quote, which, in reality, he never made. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN in 1999, Gore actually said, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.” Gore was one of the first political leaders who recognized the importance of the internet, and it was not fair that he was disparaged for his foresight.
The point is that a ‘narrative’ can be stronger than the actual truth. This is important to realize right now as the US Congress hearings on the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2020, known as the January 6th Committee, will be having their activities televised. These hearings have been ongoing for nearly a year now and have not made any dent in public opinion. If anything, they have been more of an embarrassment to the Capitol Police Force protection for such pathetic preparation for an event that was widely known and advertised around the country prior to it.
Instead, this three-hour riot has been described as an insurrection, an attempted coup, and even a terrorist attack by those who wish to make political capital from the event. No hyperbole has been spared. It has been described, and this is no joke, as worse than the 9/11 attacks, worse than Watergate, even worse than the British sacking of Washington, D.C. in 1814! It is a little hard to align these magnifications of the truth when video footage shows police and security guards letting people into the Capitol building. Many of these “insurrectionists” simply wandered in, took selfies, and walked around checking out the place.
Sadly, there was a life that was taken but not by the rioters. Ashli Babbitt, a US Air Force veteran from Southern California, climbed through a broken window. Though she was not armed, a Capitol Police officer believed she represented a threat and shot and killed her. An internal investigation found the officer’s actions were “lawful and within Department policy.” He did not even face any internal discipline.
There will be a lot of competition from the members of the January 6th Committee to come up with juicy sound bites that will live to define these solemn hearings. As Mark Twain first quoted in 1919, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.” The one problem with that well-known quote is that Mark Twain died in 1910.
