The debate moderators last Tuesday left Candy Crowley circa 2012 behind in a cloud of dust in terms of strategic “fact-checking.” Crowley protected Obama in a 2012 debate against Mitt Romney by giving a dramatic and false “fact-check” (I wrote at length about it at the time, in particular in this post and this one).

But the moderators at the Trump/Harris debate “fact-checked” Trump (often incorrectly) again and again and again, while letting Harris skate on lie after lie after lie. No fact-checking for her. It was journalistic malpractice; if you’re going to fact-check in real time at all (which I don’t think should be happening), it must be fair, even-handed, and correct. This wasn’t even close. Then again, “malpractice” only would apply depending on what today’s newspeople consider their guiding principles, and for a long time objectivity has not been among them.

The other day I posted a video of some podcasters analyzing the back-and-forth in the debate in terms of the roles of the moderators and the questions they asked each candidate. In case you missed it, here it is again:

There are also a number of articles that deal with the lies Harris told that the moderators didn’t challenge in any way – and in fact, there was zero fact-checking of Harris during the debate. The lists are long enough that no article deals with them in depth, but here’s an example of such a list.

The problem is that Harris knows she’ll get away with lies because (a) there will be no fact-checking of her in real time (b) the MSM will almost certainly not be fact-checking her properly later unless they are forced to for some especially egregious error; and (c) most listeners will not know she’s lying because she’s often repeating lies told by the MSM for years, and therefore people don’t even recognize she is lying.

One fact-check the media was forced – by the public because of community notes on Twitter – to issue had to do with Harris’ support for paying for transition for illegal immigrants claiming to be trans. Here’s what happened:

Despite all of this being true, here’s how Time covered this moment: “The former President … falsely claimed that Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.”

Now, on top of Time being staffed with lousy, lazy, partisan, left-wing activists who spread misinformation, there’s another reason Time spread this lie… The idea of taxpayer-funded sex change operations for illegal aliens is so outside the mainstream, so wackadoodle, Time likely didn’t even bother to fact-check Trump’s statement. It was simply assumed Trump had invented this because no sane person would ever support something so ridiculously dumb. …

Well, much to Time’s humiliation, the truth will out and the outlet was forced to not only issue a correction …

Something similar happened to the New Yorker on the same subject. How many listeners see the correction? I haven’t a clue, but my guess is that it’s a lot fewer than saw the debate, and the MSM and the Harris contingent count on that.

I also want to call special attention to another “fact-check” during the debate. This one was on violent crime statistics. The use of statistics in politics is both common and tricky. Here is the exchange in question:

But not only did a report from yesterday say that violent crime is up, but the report under discussion during the debate was – just as Trump said – incomplete and missing important data. And then there are police sources reported on here who say that in NY, “migrant crime” is rampant:

Police sources shared with The Post a staggering estimate that as many as 75% of the people they’ve been arresting in Midtown Manhattan in recent months for crimes like assault, robbery and domestic violence are migrants. In parts of Queens, the figure is more than 60%, sources there estimate. …

The problem is made much worse by sanctuary city laws that mean New York cops aren’t allowed to work with ICE on cases in which they believe suspects are in the country illegally. Additionally, the NYPD says it is barred from tracking the immigration status of offenders.

This makes it almost impossible for authorities to get their arms around the problem, experts and sources on the ground say.

Or to compile valid statistics on the subject and report on it accurately.

But the authoritative moderator/”fact-checker” Muir knows nothing of this.

Towards the end of the segment I cued up in that clip, note the way in which Harris counters what Trump says about crime:

I think this is so rich, coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing.

Accompanied by a sarcastic, derisive laugh. This particular moment hasn’t been emphasized much in discussions of the debate, even on the right. But to me it is one of the most chilling, maybe even the most chilling. First use twisted and novel versions of the law to blatantly persecute your rival in courts chosen for their bias for your side, and then laugh and mock in triumph at what you’ve done, using that “evidence” to say that your opponent doesn’t care about violent criminals targeting ordinary citizens because he is a criminal himself.

I could say so much more, but this is long enough for today.