The most conspicuous fault line in 2024's very peculiar presidential election has to be the histrionics Donald Trump and JD Vance have shown us about fact-checking during debates.
The former one-term president and his running mate, a senator from Ohio, cast accuracy as the real looming threat to democracy in America last month and again after Tuesday's vice presidential debate.
Their opponents, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, by contrast, seem almost agnostic about fact-checking but bemused by the other side's erratic eruptions when debate moderators weigh in.
Which raises the question: What does all that tell you about who is more likely to speak the truth as they compete for control of the White House?
I've never seen a debate winner complain about fact-checking by moderators. Harris clearly defeated Trump during their lone debate last month. And Trump has wailed since then about the two ABC News moderators who had the audacity to bring clarity to that conversation.
Now it's Vance's turn to play victim, even though his debate with Walz on Tuesday evening was widely – and I'd say accurately – judged a draw between the two candidates.
The CBS News debate was moderated by Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan, who opened by explaining that they would "enforce the rules and provide the candidates with the opportunity to fact-check claims made by each other."
While there had been plenty of chatter about not fact-checking the candidates, as the moderators of........