The Los Angeles Times has published a lavish puff piece hailing Linsey Davis, one of the moderators of ABC’s three-against-one Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate Tuesday evening. And why not? With her yeoman service to Harris’ cause, Davis has become a rising star in the far-left propaganda machine known as the establishment media. Amid growing controversy over a whistleblower’s allegation that Harris received the questions beforehand, however, the Times revealed a good deal more than it intended.
Quick: who were the moderators of the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960? Or the moderators of the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter debate in 1976 when Ford promised the world that there would be no Soviet domination of Poland on his watch? How about the moderators of Ronald Reagan’s debate with Walter Mondale in 1984, the one where the Gipper turned the tables on the age issue and turned around his campaign? Can’t come up with any of them? That’s because they did their jobs, more or less impartially, and they knew they weren’t supposed to be the center of attention.
The L.A. Times, however, wants us to know that Linsey Davis deserves our attention, as well as our grateful praise: “In an era in which misinformation spreads fast and furious,” the Times’ Stephen Battaglio gushes, “Davis’ real-time fact check cut through the proceedings like a sharp blade.” The Times was enthused because Davis corrected “Trump’s claim that the Democratic Party’s support of abortion rights includes ‘executing’ an infant after it’s born.”
Davis’ “fact-check,” however, was inaccurate, and Trump was correct. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, has asked ABC and Davis for a retraction, stating: "This is 100% inaccurate. Her statement tragically ignores the reality of babies who survive failed, late-term abortions but are denied basic medical care and left to die."
So far there has been no retraction, and there is unlikely to be one, as the Times depicts Davis preparing to confront Trump on this very issue. Was Kamala Harris debating Trump, or was his opponent Linsey Davis? Battaglio tells us that Davis prepared for the debate as if she were the Democrat candidate and came in ready to shoot down Trump’s assertions.
The Times piece writes about Davis as if she were a fashion model in high demand: the “journalist” was, we are told, “wearing pink glasses while speaking to The Times over breakfast at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia.” In the course of this conversation, Davis “said the decision to attempt to correct the candidates was in response to the June 27 CNN debate between Trump and President Biden, whose poor performance led to his exit from the race.”
There it is. Davis’ goal in the debate was not to give both candidates a fair hearing on their plans and proposals. Instead, her goal in the debate was to make sure that what happened to Old Joe Biden wouldn’t happen to Kamala Harris: she wouldn’t be driven from the race after a disastrous debate performance against Trump because Davis and her co-moderator, David Muir, would be doing everything they possibly could to protect her.
Davis said of the Trump-Biden debate, “People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators.” In order to keep that from happening again, Muir and Davis “divided up the topics to study, and Davis fully anticipated that Trump’s erroneous abortion claim would come up when she questioned him on the issue. ‘That was an obvious thing to get on the record,’ Davis said.”
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Great. But Davis is not running for president of the United States, so why was she entering the debate as a participant? It was not her job, at least officially, to work to aid Harris and harm Trump. The fact that Davis’ correction was wrong and that Trump was correct makes it even worse and demonstrates the hazards of having debate moderators act as “fact-checkers.” Quite aside from the question of whether or not Harris got the questions in advance, Davis’ correction of “erroneous” claims from Trump was enough to establish that the debate was not a fair or evenhanded platform for both candidates.
The fact that Davis is now being lauded among her establishment media comrades for correcting Trump instead of being forced to apologize and resign from ABC News, is yet another indication that mainstream “news” outlets simply aren’t about news in any way. They’re PR outfits for the Democrats and for the left in general. In that environment, watch for Linsey Davis’ star to continue to rise.
