This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

While Donald Trump has been inundated with (mostly deserved) criticism, he did manage to pull off a minor miracle while he was a candidate for president.

He made Megyn Kelly into a journalism icon by treating her incredibly unfairly and incredibly badly. And that was indeed miraculous, given Kelly's history as a strident, partisan and borderline racist host on the Fox News Channel.

Kelly ignited a very public feud with Trump when she asked him a perfectly legitimate question at a GOP debate: "You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. … Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks. You once told a contestant on 'The Celebrity Apprentice' it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how do you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton — that you are part of the war on women?"

Again, a perfectly legitimate question. Trump responded by attacking political correctness, publicly questioning whether Kelly was menstruating and calling her names — and his supporters issued death threats.

As a result, many forgot that Kelly had built a career on her strident Fox News Channel show, in which she bullied and belittled people on a regular basis. She was condescending and dismissive, shouting down or cutting off guests.

You know, the Fox News Channel formula.

Kelly misrepresented a tweet by the Girls Scouts, trying to draw them into an abortion debate. She refused to speak the name of the man who killed three in a 2014 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, then said his name "sounds Hispanic, Latino" — and race was not relevant to the story.

She blamed a woman who died in police custody in Texas for her own death. She said she's not a feminist because feminists are "emasculating."

Kelly ignited a silly controversy by insisting that Santa Claus and Jesus are white. In response to the backlash, she accused her critics of "race-baiting."

Oh, the irony.

She did, at least, admit that Jesus probably wasn't Caucasian.

Kelly launched dozens of attacks on former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for administering justice that favored African Americans over whites — attacks that were filled with innuendo and race-baiting and devoid of facts. She repeatedly invited discredited ex-L.A. cop Mark Fuhrman, whose use of a racial slur helped torpedo the case against O.J. Simpson, on her show. She continued to invite conspiracy theorist J. Christian Adams on as an "expert" even after his string of racial attacks on the first African-American U.S. attorney general had been widely discredited.

Now Kelly has moved to NBC, where she's got a new newsmagazine (Sunday, 6 p.m., Ch. 5) and a daytime talk show set to premiere this fall. She'll also be a part of the network's coverage of "major events." NBC and Kelly want us to remember she was a Fox News Channel star and forget why.

She once told The Daily Beast, "I'm a soulless lawyer. Give me any opinion and I can argue it."

The only thing that could be more reprehensible than what she did on Fox News is if she didn't actually believe what she was saying. Either way, Kelly is hardly the journalism icon Trump made her appear. Briefly.

But … good job with those debate questions.

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.