ArcaMax

The debate debacle hosted by ABC underscored why the conservative half of America is hostile to "fact-checkers." Object to them, and the left decrees it's because you're hostile to facts. But what conservatives actually oppose is leftist argumentation that's poorly disguised as nonpartisan and devoid of opinion.

"Fact-checking" is often an exercise in spin-spoiling. The most obvious example from the ABC debate was the Democrat position on abortion. It is, as plainly stated in the 2020 DNC platform, for the woman's "right to choose" without exception. That is what congressional Democrats have pushed in legislation, to repeal every limitation states have imposed.

Donald Trump routinely turns to the 2019 comments of then-Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia on the radio as he discussed a bill by state legislator Kathy Tran to make third-trimester abortions easier. She admitted it was so extreme it would allow a baby to be killed as they were about to be born.

So Northam explained how a baby that was born could be "kept comfortable" while the parents decided if they wanted an abortion. After this clip went viral, Northam's team said he didn't mean abortion. That's not credible, but the spin spoilers will quote it like it's rock-solid.

In response to Trump, ABC moderator Linsey Davis made a face like she was smelling rancid meat and said, "There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born." Kamala Harris happily piled on: "Well, as I said, you're going to hear a bunch of lies. And that's not actually a surprising fact."

That fact-check is false. Just look at Minnesota under her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz. A state law that was on the books since 1976 required "responsible medical personnel" to use all "reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice" to "preserve the life and health of the born-alive infant." The legislation Walz signed in May 2023 disposed of the word "preserve" and replaced it with a revised requirement "to care for the infant who is born alive."

Conservatives can detect the spirit of Northam in that verbiage. Leftists already use the term "abortion care." That could apply to this.

At the very least, the knee-jerk reflex to "fact-check" should be suppressed. "Fact-checkers" all over the media descended on Trump over his latest citation of Northam, as they have for years now. They spew in outraged protest that late-term abortions are "rare," like that somehow makes the extreme Democrat stance untrue.

ABC had carefully prepared to pounce on this. After the debate, Davis admitted to Stephen Battaglio at the Los Angeles Times that the decision to attempt to correct the candidates was in response to the CNN debate between Trump and Joe Biden, "whose poor performance led to his exit from the race."

They claimed to have researched the speeches of both candidates, and Davis said she fully anticipated that Trump's "erroneous" abortion claim would come up when she questioned him. "That was an obvious thing to get on the record," Davis said.

But there was no attempt, after all this apparent research on both candidates, to question anything Harris said to "get on the record." Not one thing.

Let's guess that shameless zero occurred because on the left, any attempt to fact-check a Democrat opposing Trump is objectionable, because it suggests that a Democrat's falsehoods might be made equivalent to Trump's. Every anti-Trump journalist acts on the belief that any measure of neutrality is an atrocity. But they don't think late-term abortion is an atrocity.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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