The story emerging this week about Senate Democrat titan Chuck Schumer has delivered several reactions. It is astounding, perplexing, it is troubling, and regardless of your impression, it is also utterly hilarious. We now have a window into the mind of the longtime political reptile and raw hamburger chef, and just how corrupted his brainpan has truly become.
It also serves as another indictment of our deeply flawed media complex.
Brad Essex covered this tale on Tuesday. HBO talk show host John Oliver revealed in a segment that Schumer has been touting how his political motivation over the years has been molded by a Long Island couple named the Baileys. (You really need to click into Brad’s piece and watch the video clip – it is a marvel.)
ESSEX FILES: Schumer’s Imaginary Voters: A Tale of Democratic Disconnect
Schumer has used this couple as a guiding beacon in his policy-making and voting while in D.C. over time. He has cited them in numerous press conferences, brought them up during a plethora of interviews, and detailed them in his book, “Positively American.” You are left with the impression that Schumer and the Baileys are either neighbors, and that they commiserate while home, in New York, and that he speaks with them weekly while in D.C.
Except the Baileys do not exist. It has been learned that they are a complete work of fiction. This is a staggering display of a man who is not right above the neck.
Additionally, like a pulp novel you read at the beach, it is also a mystery. How – just HOW - has Chuck Schumer been able to go all this time undetected in that he crafted a completely make-believe couple from Long Island – for decades?! And why did it take a comedian/quasi-investigator with a cable show to become the one who exposed this fable?
It is not as if Chuck would uncork “The Bailey’s” in gentle asides when discussing a topic, or resort to those familiar doses of fabulism we see from politicians on the regular. (“On my way into the Capitol, my Uber told me what really concerned him was…”, or “I walked in to catch my 8-year-old son sobbing over the defunding of PBS.”) Schumer would trot out the tale of the Baileys and what was on their mind so often that his staff even suggested they were imaginary friends -- all while in public speeches, he asserted to speaking to them directly. This mythical Massapequa couple has become a part of Schumer’s lore.
So how is it that no one – not one member of the media - has been curious enough to look in on this family before? Chuck has brought them up in detailed discussions with outlets like CNN, NBC, the Wall Street Journal, and C-SPAN, and with personalities such as Lou Dobbs, Charlie Rose, and Tim Russert. He has spoken of them publicly in nationally covered pressers and in “Positively American”, as John Oliver detailed, Schumer invoked the Baileys by name 265 times, in a book with 264 pages.
Yet we are to believe nobody in the press ever considered looking into the lives of this pretend nuclear family? One would rightfully expect, given the length of Schumer’s referencing of them and the breadth of his backstory about their “lives”, that some intrepid journalist would seek them out. How did we get here without some news outlet desiring to highlight Schumer’s favorite constituents, inquiring to have an interview on camera or in print, or simply looking to do a profile on an influential couple?
What has to be considered (admitting this is pure speculation) is that at some point, some reporters endeavored to do just that, looking for this referenced pair of New Yorkers to do a feature, only to come to the realization they do not exist. This would prove challenging, given Schumer’s prominence in Congress and the favored status he enjoys in the press. Consider how troubling this reality would become for a sycophantic journalist.
Schumer more than brought up the Baileys as a reference point over the years; he had a disturbingly detailed back story crafted for them. He knew not only their careers (he an insurance adjuster, she a medical office worker) but also their salaries ($50k and $20K, respectively). Chuck delivered specifics like how Joe behaves at Islanders games and had a prostate cancer diagnosis at one time. He even wrote about their stances on social issues and protests back in the 1960s.
Now imagine you are a reporter looking to do a glowing piece on the supporters of one of your preferred politicians and come to find out he has been consummately lying about them, on a pathological level. Beyond the unsettling practice, this would prove that Schumer was only interested in pushing his own personal views, using this fabricated family as his justification, and ignoring the intentions of his actual living voters. If you were to report honestly about this, you would end up ruining the man’s career.
This theory – again, speculative at this stage – has merit when you look at one detail we are experiencing right now. Since John Oliver’s exposé on this fairy tale, there has not been any level of energetic coverage on Schumer's prevarication in the press this week. Apart from select conservative outlets, the main news cycle around Chuckles this week has been his combative stance against Trump taking over the D.C. law enforcement, his selection of a Kennedy grandson for a commission seat, and his support for August to be “Hip-Hop Recognition Month.”
It is like news outlets would prefer this story be sent out to Massapequa to play out its remaining days, a location the press will still refuse to go out and visit. Not that they would be turned away, but because the truth behind this false family is most unwelcome.
