When US Senator Josh Hawley was graduating from Stanford University, US Representative Elaine Luria was monitoring the nuclear reactors on the USS Harry S. Truman.
The nuclear powered aircraft carrier is named after one of Missouri’s favorite sons, the 33rd President of the United States. Truman was from Independence, Missouri, which is where Hawley, a Republican, grew up.
Luria is a Democrat from Virginia. Thursday night on prime-time television, Luria and Hawley bonded forever during a dramatic video reveal to the nation. Luria, a member of the bipartisan House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, was at the helm during the revelation.
That’s how Luria, a 20-year veteran who graduated from the Naval Academy, created the clip that had Hawley trending on social media platforms around the world for all the wrong reasons.
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“This afternoon, before the start of the joint session, he walked across the East Wing of the Capitol. As you can see in this photo, he raised his fist in solidarity with the protesters, who were already crowding the security gate. Let’s talk with a Capitol Police officer, who was there at the time. He told us that Sen. Hawley’s gesture irritated the crowd. And it really upset them because he was doing it in a safe space, protected by officers and barriers. More late that day, Senator Hawley fled after angry protesters stormed the Capitol. See for yourself.”
And then he played the footage that drew audible laughter from the courtroom, as audience members watched Hawley flee across the Capitol to escape the impending violence. It’s not the race, per se, that caused the comic relief. It was the juxtaposition with the photo of Hawley raising his fist earlier in the day.
This is what made the contrast between Luria and Hawley all the more powerful. Hawley, a political climber who started running for the U.S. Senate before getting his feet wet as the state’s attorney general, is tough on supporting law enforcement and the military . But it didn’t work. Call out against the elitists. But he is one, having graduated from an elite West Coast college and earned a law degree from Yale University on the East Coast.
He puts the image of himself raising his fist on a coffee cup and sells it as a commodity. But the truth is, he ran, running past his teammates, like “Seinfeld’s” George Costanza pushing an elderly lady away while running from the fire he started.
Luria, on the other hand, came off during the hearing like a disciplined Navy officer, reciting details without emotion. This was the greatest strategic success of the televised hearings on January 6. The TV stars have been veterans, either staunch Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., or former Trump loyalists like Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews and Matt Pottinger, a former Navy officer, whose truth has been obvious to anyone who pays. attention
The committee has been slowly building the case that former President Donald Trump led an attempt to overturn American democracy.
Hawley is a bit of a player in the matter. But as social media memes of him on the run multiplied, with the video set to music like the old tune from “Benny Hill” or the theme from “Chariots of Fire,” the narrative of the tough guy going trying to pose as a Senate candidate, when he donned an FBI windbreaker for a staged raid on a massage parlor, collapsed into the ether.
“I thought he was running like a coward,” Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was beaten by the insurgents, told CNN on Thursday.
It was the face that raised the fist of sedition. Now he is the political opportunist who got away, exposed by a naval officer with excellent marksmanship.
From City Hall to the Capitol, metro columnist Tony Messenger shines a light on what public officials are up to, tells stories of the disaffected and gives voice to the issues that matter.