Posted on 09/04/2008 12:17:25 PM PDT by Yo-Yo
It was a video that was supposed to elicit soaring patriotism and real emotions about the Pledge of Allegiance. But to do that, it used fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.
On Tuesday night, 15-year-old Victoria Blackstone, a sophomore at the St. Agnes School in St. Paul, led the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience heard her 434-word essay, “Pledging myself to the Flag of the United States of America,” an essay she’d entered it in the “Wave the Stars & Stripes” essay contest and won. The RNC turned that essay into a three and a half minute video, a visually stirring montage rolling over Victoria’s words about sharing the Pledge with Americans who have stood at important moments in history.
There’s the Continental Congress…A real WWII vet…Photos of workers at Ground Zero. A close-up of a folded flag presented to a grieving widow at a military funeral… profiles of soldiers swelling with pride in slo-motion.
But CBS News found that the footage of the ‘funeral’ and soldiers is what is called ‘stock’ footage. The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production.
The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee.
One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, IL also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention.
A veteran’s advocate said that with soldiers still deployed and in harm’s way, there is an obligation not to sugar coat reality.
“What it does reveal is a serious lack of understanding and a lack of personal connection to the military,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Rieckhoff, who is at the convention with a contingent of veterans added that a video tribute to Medal of Honor Winner Michael Monsoor, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq, shown on Tuesday night, used combat video that appeared to him and several other veterans of the Iraq war to have been staged.
The RNC did not respond to CBS News’ request for a comment.
Not a scandal. The Left has been using phony soldiers to confess to observing war crimes.
If the RNC had used footage of a REAL funeral, the media would be decrying it as “exploitation” of a man’d death.
Don’t let the truth get in the way of the liberal MSM attempt to make conservatives look like phonies.
This is just another case of “projection”.
You nailed it.
Filmmakers for the RNC use stock footage!!! Vote Obama!!!
Makes about as much sense as anything else that have to offer.
- It is unauthorized for a soldier to make political statements or campaign in uniform. The author of this piece is ignorant. Of course they use “fake soldiers.”
However, I know what most soldiers will vote for. I know what party has backed the soldier historically and not abandoned them in this war............ But to a liberal, even if it's gossip or made up news, as long as it fits into their world view it's very important and a legitimate argument.
Soldiers are not allowed to make political statements endorsing a candidate or campaign while in uniform etc.
Out of uniform I could do things, but in uniform, no way! This is essentially a “made up” scandal.
Thank you, also to have used real footage from a funeral would have been in poor taste for a political convention.
You mean those weren’t real civil war soldiers who dropped by for the film.
Instead they found out that the ad appropriately reenacted a funeral rather than use footage of a real funeral for one of our fallen heros for political ends.
Funerals for our fallen soldiers are private events for their families and loved ones, not political props or a place for extremist liberals to go and protest the war.
This is something the RND did right.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39707
Kerry flip-flop on war footage?
Defensively said 2 years ago ‘no intention’ to use Vietnam film for campaign purposes (Posted: July 29, 2004)
On the defensive for filming himself during the Vietnam war, John Kerry once told a reporter he had "no intention" of using the footage for campaign purposes, but some of it will be featured tonight in a video of introduction before his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech.
The media forgets that Jean Kerry staged footage of his "heroism" in Vietnam for later political use...
So they didn’t intrude on someone’s funeral for a campaign video. That was a good thing unlike the Democrats trying to make the coffins and funerals into campaign and anti-war propaganda.
Remember Kerry crashing the line at the Reagan memorial to get his picture “saluting” the casket (the Congressional viewing was on the other coast).
Not unlike the lesbian porno's with hot blonde chicks when in reality the lesbians in real life are ugly 300 lb b*tch dykes with a scowl on their faces and hairy armpits?
Ha! Pretty much!
Except we do occasionally have real, live hot chicks at our craps table!
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