We have all seen the rehabilitation efforts, the whitewash, the “it was nothing.” An Trump, saying “There was so much love in the air.” Other congressional members characterized it as a tourist visit gone bad. Some said we need to put it behind us. We saw the Republicans vote down a bipartisan commission to study it because “President Trump has been investigated already” – according to McConnell. Strange, no one brought Trump up, only investigating all of January 6th, why did McConnell’s thoughts immediately go to Trump? We have reported that the people arrested are akin to political prisoners. And even today, Greg Kelly accused an officer of looking like he was Antifa.

We have all, heard it all. But Fox’s Bret Baier isn’t buying it. On Tuesday Baier called out the Republicans who continue to downplay the riot, summing it up powerfully with: “You cannot watch this testimony and say that is not a big deal.”

Baier then followed up powerfully, transcript from Mediaite:

“If you were watching you saw compelling, at times damning, emotional testimony from these four officers who fought the line to try to protect the Capitol and the lawmakers inside. For anybody watching who looked at that and looked at the videos and their testimony about that day and thought it was not violent I think that was an eye-opener.”

And that’s the point, “if you were watching,” and we doubt that many Newsmax or OAN viewers were watching. Polarization creates two Americas and one half doesn’t see what actually happens in the country. We see Antifa and anarchist riots, they don’t see much of the MAGA riots.

Baier went on:

“We obviously talked about January 6 a lot in the time since then but putting it all together and seeing it again is jarring. And to listen to these officers say how they really fought to hold onto their lives.”

Another element of the Whitewash, the Right-Wing has done all it could to put it behind us. It has to be a large part of the reasoning that the Republicans didn’t want a bipartisan commission. The only question is why the GOP feels so threatened by investigating the rioters who showed up. Does it go higher? We suspect so.

While Republicans politically are saying that this is a partisan effort and that they charge that it’s not going to get to the questions that they think are important about January 6th, why were the Capitol Police so ill-prepared for what happened that day.

You cannot watch this testimony and say that it’s not a big deal. And you cannot watch this testimony and say that there are questions that are going to take us places that I don’t think we know where we’re going to go yet.”

That’s the thing. The actual testimony from the officers is not political. It comes from the people who were there and targeted. If people remember these images, it might keep politicians from creating a political narrative going into the later testimony, from the politicians themselves. The politicians need only keep the violence in the back of their mind to understand, it’s not political.

We criticize Fox on a regular basis. It is only fair to point out when they do excellent work.

After today’s hearing, Bret Baier tells his Fox audience something they don’t want to hear. “While Republicans politically are saying this is a partisan effort … you cannot watch this testimony and say this is not a big deal.” From @Mediaite pic.twitter.com/yvsO1wAoJm

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 27, 2021

The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of LeftScoop.news. Contact us for guidelines on submitting your own commentary.