Meet Pelosi’s Christian-Mocking Daughter

Nancy isn’t the only Pelosi in the news. Her daughter has courageously made a documentary mocking Christian Evangelicals. Surely a pressing topic in this day and age.

From the Denver Post:

Alexandra Pelosi, producer of the HBO documentary ‘Friends of God: A Road Trip with Alexandra Pelosi’ poses in Pasadena, California January 12, 2007.

"Friends of God" takes a new low road

By Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post TV Critic
01/23/2007

It’s easy to make fun of corny billboards proclaiming the power of Jesus, a Bible study session at a truck stop or an anti-evolution lesson for kids that shows people hanging out with dinosaurs.

It’s not difficult to mock a drive-through church, a Holy Land theme park, biblical mini-golf or a skateboard ministry.

There’s no challenge in casting a cynical light on teenagers who claim they’re "high on Jesus and ain’t comin’ down!"

Really, it takes more subtlety, understanding, and empathy to make a film that goes beyond pointing fingers and laughing. A better filmmaker could have made much more headway in trying to seriously capture the state of America’s cultural-religious divide.

"Friends of God: A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi," premiering Thursday on HBO, takes the easy way out.

With smug narration and a condescending tone, the filmmaker – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s daughter – finds plenty to gawk at outside of her hip metropolitan comfort zone. Nobody sounds more provincial than a New Yorker set adrift in the heartland.

Pelosi, a former NBC News producer, did better on her previous project, "Journeys With George," a documentary about George W. Bush’s presidential campaign.

This time her cynical, knowing attitude manages to undermine her project.

An introductory note says the film was completed in November 2006, a few days before the humiliating revelations regarding Ted Haggard brought new, unwanted attention and embarrassment to the evangelical movement.

Haggard is prominently featured in the film, talking about truth, immorality and the "pressure on godly people to be godly." His failure in that regard is a key point in the drama of the documentary.

Smiling broadly, he shows off his New Life Church megachurch in Colorado Springs. Haggard plays the part of the hale fellow, sure of his righteousness.

"Evangelicals, we’re everywhere!" he says. And evangelicals in general are particularly happy people, he agrees, because "we’ve settled some core issues," like everlasting life.

"All the surveys say evangelicals have the best sex life of any other group," he volunteers. "Let’s just find out." He turns to a couple of men among his flock and asks, "How often do you have sex with your wife? Every day? And how often does she climax? Every time?"

They josh and laugh. It’s the natural order of things, he and his congregants agree.

Later Haggard stands before his congregants, preaching that "moral purity is better than immorality, and telling the truth is better than telling a lie … that’s why secular people are so concerned when the church doesn’t fulfill it’s own moral standards. Like when a pastor falls into corruption or becomes dishonest or greedy. It’s heartbreaking."

This, we now know, was at the time of his liaisons with a male prostitute in Denver. The on-screen graphic updates viewers on the specifics of the Haggard heartbreak: Haggard admitted to his congregation, "I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life."

Haggard’s need to bring up the subject of sex on camera is baffling in light of the revelations about him that followed this production. Critics of the evangelical church won’t be able to resist feelings of glee. Still, Pelosi’s attitude is equally distracting and disturbing for viewers.

Talking to members of Cruisers for Christ, who show their vintage cars while proselytizing, she blurts a typically demeaning question: "So, do you think the Holy Spirit is here in this Burger King parking lot?" It’s too cute, too loaded. Her attitude is annoyingly superior…

So much for religious tolerance — unless you belong to a murderous cult.

Of course this isn’t Ms. Pelosi’s first mockumentary. As the article notes, she made a similarly balanced study about George Bush called "Journeys With George" in 2000.

In it, Ms. Pelosi utilized the experiences and footage she gained from her job as an NBC producer covering Bush’s presidential campaign.

From Wikipedia:

Alexandra Pelosi

Alexandra Pelosi (born 1970) is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and writer based in New York City. She is the daughter of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, like her mother, is a Democrat.

In 2000, Pelosi worked as a network television producer for NBC covering George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. She brought along a handheld camcorder documenting her experience on the campaign trail; the footage was used to create Journeys with George, a documentary that earned her six Emmy nominations…

That’s right, NBC hired Nancy Pelosi’s daughter to cover George Bush’s campaign. That’s what is known as objective journalism.

Indeed, instead of outrage about this obvious lapse of journalistic integrity, "Journeys With George" received six Emmy nominations from her peers.