By Dave Andrusko
Just as the dust seemed to be settlings from Tuesday’s presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris, former Clinton aid and veteran pollster Mark Penn kicked up a storm again.
Penn was not merely criticizing the amazingly one-side performance by moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, both of ABC News. In that he had plenty of company.
Appearing on the John Solomon Reports podcast, Penn went much further.
“I actually think they should do a full internal investigation, hire an outside law firm. I don’t know how much of this was planned in advance,” Penn told Solomon.
“I don’t know what they told the Harris campaign. I think the day after, suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate. I think the situation demands nothing less than that.”
Doug Schoen, whose biography lists him “as a Democratic campaign consultant, pollster and author of several books on politics and democracy,” by and large talked Harris up. But he did chime in that Harris “was aided and abetted by two ABC News moderators who seemingly felt the need to fact-check virtually everything the former president said.”
Sour grapes, especially from Penn? Personally, I think that every fair-minded person, regardless of political affiliation, would have been gobsmacked at the constant fact-checking of Trump but not a single pushback at any assertion made by Harris, some of which already had been totally debunked.
Just to repeat the backdrop to a debate seen by an estimated 67 million people. Prior to the debate, the Media Research Center
reviewed all 100 campaign stories that aired on ABC’s World News Tonight from the day Harris entered the race (July 21) through September 6, including weekends. Our analysts found 25 clearly positive statements about Harris from reporters, anchors, voters or other non-partisan sources, with zero negative statements — none. That computes to a gravity-defying 100% positive spin score for the Vice President.
As for Trump, our analysts found just five clearly positive comments, vs. 66 negative statements, for a dismal 7 percent positive (93% negative) spin score.
Of course, none of that was mentioned in the many posts about Davis’s all-purpose wonderfulness, none more unctuous that a story by the Los Angels Times’s Stephen Battaglio.
Under the headline, “Linsey Davis held Trump’s feet to the fire. How she became ABC News’ rising star,” Battaglio quoted Davis.
“My husband said a little 30-second prayer before I left for Philadelphia,” said Davis, a Christian who has written faith-based children’s books. “He was like, ‘God give her the words to say.’ That’s in the Scripture. There were a few praying for, in particular, wisdom, discernment, courage and peace.”
A cousin of Davis set up a prayer meeting on Zoom as well.
I doubt seriously that God gave Davis the go-ahead to “fact-check” Trump on abortion, since while it made for a great sound bite, it was completely wrong.
Will there be any sort of investigation of ABC News? Of course not, but it’s important for us to know how shamelessly Muir and Davis put their thumbs on the scale.