I was on the National Mall on the Fourth and it was not what was broadcast:

If you were watching Washington’s Fourth of July fireworks outside on Monday night and also happened to catch PBS’s broadcast of “A Capitol Fourth,” you might have noticed something looked…a little off.

The actual weather in Washington was cloudy and misty, making it quite difficult to view the fireworks. But on “A Capitol Fourth,” the annual concert special that airs live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, many of the fireworks (primarily in the second half of the display) looked glorious in a clear sky. Immediately, people started commenting on Twitter….

PBS acknowledged intercutting old footage with its live broadcast shortly after the show ended, saying in a tweet, “We showed a combination of the best fireworks from this year and previous years. It was the patriotic thing to do.”

Well, it was the American thing to do — faking patriotism.