MAUREEN CALLAHAN: I’m starting to believe there’s a media conspiracy to get Kamala elected! When WILL an interviewer ask the question that would finally expose her fraudulent campaign?

What about Doug?

Kamala Harris was challenged on several issues by Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday night, but her husband’s deeply troubled history with women was not one of them.

Why wasn’t this the first question?

We’ve heard Kamala’s canned responses to everything else ad nauseam. But when it comes to a claim from multiple sources that in May 2012, Doug Emhoff punched his then-girlfriend so hard in the face that she turned around — in full view of a parking attendant outside an A-list gala in France — Harris apparently has nothing to answer.

Democrats are the party of “believe all women,” of “protect all women,” and especially abortion rights.

The obvious question is: does Kamala, the accuser who boasts that she was motivated by the sexual abuse of her teenage best friend, believe this woman?

Does she believe the nanny who allegedly impregnated Doug Emhoff during his first marriage?

After all, Doug admitted to the affair, but didn’t deny the pregnancy.

Nor has he denied reports that he paid the nanny $80,000 to go away and made her sign a non-disclosure agreement. He has not denied reports that the LAPD was called to the nanny’s home, when she was supposedly pregnant, for a level three emergency – meaning a life-threatening situation.

Baier’s interview on Wednesday was commendable on several fronts, not least his willingness to push back on Harris’ filibustering and her bleating, designed to cover up gaps in her knowledge and eat up valuable time — time that Baier says was wasted shortened by the vice president and her colleagues. team, which arrived well after the start time for an already short interview.

As Harris sat in a defensive position, legs crossed and wrists crossed over his knees, Baier asked this great question, which no other journalist has asked yet:

“You told a lot of interviewers that Joe Biden was playing, that [he] walked circles around his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden’s mental faculties seemed impaired?”

Now that is cooking with gas.

Harris paused. Her brow furrowed. Her eyes searched for an answer that didn’t include the terms “opportunity economy,” “aspirations, dreams and goals,” “work ethic,” “lifting people up, not tearing them down.”

Her operating system buffered for a few seconds. Then she told a blatant lie.

“Joe Biden,” she said, “I’ve been watching from the Oval Office” – hands coming up to form brackets that move up and down as if to indicate heavy, profound thoughts – “and the Situation Room” – her tandem head nod comes now in – “and he has the judgment, the experiment, the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people.”

That must have been why every elder of the Democratic Party, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, almost physically forced him to withdraw from his candidacy for a second term.

Kamala also made a stealth deflection, repeatedly asking Baier a version of, “Are you going to let me finish?”

The subtext was clear: Are you, a male journalist, really going to cut – reject, ignore, disrespect – a message? woman? Possibly the first female president of the United States?

That reminds me of this classic Kamala-ism, delivered to Baier in full outrage against Trump as “the President of the United States, in the United States of America!”

There is nothing remotely sexist about an interviewer telling a subject that their answers are repetitive, banal, or cliché. Or that their limited time is best spent eliciting details and deepening the conversation, not spinning verbal wheels until the clock runs out.

To that point: As Baier tried to wrap up, Kamala — who clearly thought she was on fire — kept pushing back and talking, talking, talking, until Baier had to tell her that her own team (Four of them, he said later), frantically demanded an end to this disaster.

Among the many qualities that Kamala lacks, self-awareness is right up there.

She and Doug have made women’s rights a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, despite the distinct possibility that these dark accusations from his past would surface.

Here was Doug speaking to MSNBC’s fangirl Jen Psaki on September 29, weeks after the nanny affair story broke:

“When we lift up women, we lift up families, we lift up the economy,” he said unashamedly. “And when I was in the business world, it boosted the organizations I was in.”

Try telling that to the women who worked at Emhoff’s law firm, who have since come forward to claim a culture of misogyny and poor treatment.

As several former employees told the Mail, Emhoff allegedly punished women who did not flirt with him, organized only men’s drinks at the office and preferred young and attractive female employees to accompany him in limousines to major events.

What a guy.

In the wake of these disturbing claims, Kamala and Doug have joined forces on social media. On Sunday, Kamala posted a loving message on Instagram.

“Happy Birthday my Dougie,” she wrote. “You are the best, and I love you very much.”

That same day, Doug posted photos of himself with his daughter Ella – you know, the one whose nanny he slept with – when she was a baby, writing:

‘This campaign has made me think a lot about the role we as fathers have to play in the fight for a future that empowers our daughters.’

That’s Doug Emhoff: ultimate girl dad, right? And if you don’t believe it, check out his recent photo with Julia Roberts in a Harris-Walz cap.

This audacity, this use of women to valorize Doug and Kamala, gets to the real problem with her candidacy: she is inauthentic, hypocritical and avoids any issue that could – God forbid – make her feel uncomfortable.

It is depressing that the mainstream media is only too happy to comply.

The only person who has that pretended Entering this wicked realm is MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who last week asked a general, flowery question that discredited these women’s disturbing claims.

Oh – and of course, both Doug and Scarborough blamed Trump for spreading gross “gossip” stories about Doug’s “personal life.”

To be clear, these are not stories about Doug’s personal life. These are stories about the women he allegedly abused.

“We don’t have time to focus on it,” Emhoff said. “It’s all a distraction.”

Awkward women are a ‘distraction’? I got it.

Shame on Scarborough. Shame on all the media lackeys carrying Kamala and Doug’s water. If this were a Republican candidate, the New York Times and co would be digging through this man’s history like archaeologists.

Rumor has it that Kamala’s next big interview will be with Joe Rogan. If she has real guts, if she wants to show her true courage, she will then sit down with a right-wing or centrist female journalist – Megyn Kelly or her increasingly rare ilk – and answer all the questions about Doug, the nanny. , the ex-girlfriend, and his alleged workplace culture of misogyny.

In the very likely event that Kamala will not do such a thing, the responsibility lies with whoever gets the next interview.

The only question is: will they be brave enough?