Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up

Fox News Sunday had a landmark Watchdog day, not only asking this week's question about Huckabee's past ethical violations, but also asking last month's Watchdog question about Huckabee's deeply flawed proposal to replace the income tax with a national sales tax.

Huckabee's answers were laughable, saying that his five state Ethics Commission sanctions simply meant that: "I'm prepared for the rigors of a presidential campaign, in that I've been through this stuff."

And despite all the factual analyses finding that his tax plan could not generate enough revenue without a ridiculously high rate, Huckabee insisted that a 23% national sales tax would bring in the same amount of revenue.

Why did Fox go all Watchdog on Huckabee? I would suggest that, in part, it's because Huckabee is widely disliked in the corporate wing of the conservative movement.

While Rudy Giuliani is seen with some suspicion among social conservatives, the suits at Fox News have long been favorable to him.

Whereas Huckabee's record increasing tax rates as governor of Arkansas offends those with the money in the conservative movement.

As far the rest of the Watchdog, former Senator Fred Dalton Thompson was not asked on ABC's This Week about his contradictory positions on immigration, despite taking a swipe at Huckabee for being a "liberal" on immigration.

And on CBS' Face The Nation, while John Edwards was asked what he would do in Pakistan, he was not asked about his past support of Musharraf and if supporting Musharraf contributed to the current instability.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future