On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace had a one-on-one interview with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

Apparently, Wallace must have spent his prep time watching some of his father's greatest hits from "60 Minutes".  Sufficiently inspired, he decided to actually ask Davis some tough questions.  Davis, expecting a soft-toss interview, found himself getting repeated chin music from a most unexpected place.

First, Wallace puts the lie to one of McCain's recent ads.

WALLACE: All right. Let's take a look at one of your campaign's recent ads. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Life in the spotlight must be grand. But for the rest of us, times are tough. Obama voted to raise taxes on people making just $42,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Mr. Davis, especially that last sentence, isn't that misleading?

DAVIS: Nothing misleading about it. Barack Obama voted for a budget resolution that would have increased taxes on people, families, making $42,000. What's misleading about that?

WALLACE: Well, in fact, it only would be single people making $42,000. It would be families making over $60,000. But Obama — as you say, he voted for a non-binding budget resolution that overall talked about doing away with the Bush tax cuts.

In fact, he says, that's not his tax plan, that he supports a middle-class tax cut. And I want to put something up on the screen. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center says someone making $37,000 a year under Obama's plan would get a tax cut of $892. Under McCain's plan, they get a tax cut of $113.

Ooooooooops.  It's not good when Chris Wallace exposes the lies you're telling on national TV.

Wallace must have enjoyed watching Davis squirm through that exchange, for he promptly produced another haymaker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse off than we were four years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Does Senator McCain really believe that, that this country is worse off than we were four years ago?

DAVIS: Sure. All along the trail, John McCain campaigns around real people. He goes to town halls and he hears what they have to say to him.

You don't have to be in very many town halls, Chris, to understand that people are pinched by the increase in gas prices. They're losing jobs because of some downturn in manufacturing. And the economy as a whole has been very hard on the American family.

That's what John McCain's referring to. He doesn't have to go very far every day to find those kinds of examples.

WALLACE: Given that, I want you to respond to this clip from an Obama ad. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: The president and I agree on most issues. There was a recent study that showed that I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: In fact, Mr. Davis, Senator McCain is understating it. Last year, he voted to support Bush legislation 95 percent of the time.

Given that, if the country's worse off, isn't both the president and John McCain — aren't they both responsible?

DAVIS: Well, look. If you want to talk about history, then you can make all the cases you want to make...

WALLACE: But you're talking about history. You talk about the last four years.

At this point, I had just about fallen off my easy chair.  I wasn't sure if I was watching "Fox News Sunday" or a "Meet the Press" re-run.  Either way, Wallace was doing one hell of a Tim Russert impersonation.  No spin, no lies, just the candidate's and campaign's own words juxtaposed with facts.

Emboldened by the addictive power of the First Amendment, Wallace decided to try a third act of blatant journalism.

WALLACE: Finally, the Obama camp, I don't have to tell you, is pounding you for your work as a lobbyist. In 2003, you lobbied Congress, and Senator McCain in his job as chairman of the Commerce Committee helped you to allow the German-owned DHL buy Airborne Express.

You made from this German-owned company about $600,000 in lobbying fees. The Democrats are making a big deal of the fact that DHL is now talking about taking 8,000 jobs out of the state of Ohio.

Are you and Senator McCain going to do anything to try to prevent that?

DAVIS: Well, first of all, let me correct you. Senator McCain did not help me do anything. I represented Airborne, which was the incumbent in that location in Ohio, and they wanted to be bought by DHL. And there were people in Congress who didn't want to have that happen.

John McCain has always believed that foreign investment in this sector is fine, and unless there was something that was inappropriate about the deal it should go forward.

WALLACE: Well, that's how he helped you, is to agree that...

DAVIS: Well, but he didn't help me. He helped the people in Ohio, because those jobs were probably going to be lost if they didn't get taken over because of the competitive nature of this business.

WALLACE: But now DHL is talking about taking...

DAVIS: I haven't represented DHL or any of their entities since 2005 when I completely got out of the lobbying business.

Davis then spends a few moments attempting to spin the discussion into Obama being afraid to hold a town hall because of a radio ad running in that area. 

Wallace, however, refuses to let go of the DHL topic.

WALLACE: Directly, can you, will you, or Senator McCain, try to do anything to get DHL not to take those 8,000 jobs away?

DAVIS: Oh, sure. Senator McCain in the town hall with the people affected most by this told them that he would do what he could do, look into the transaction.

By the way, this is a different transaction than had occurred almost four years ago.  So it has nothing to do with any of the things he'd ever done before. And he didn't really have the level of detail he need and he's going to look into it.

"...didn't really have the level of detail he needed?" 

One would think that such an experienced and knowledgeable candidate would be aware of the impending loss of thousands of jobs...from a deal made by your lobbyist campaign manager...before scheduling a town hall...in the town most affected by said job loss.

But hey, that's the Maverick.  John McCain:  Country First!*

* - Slogan applies only to that part of said country that owns at least three homes, thinks there's no foreclosure crisis, holds that we're a nation of whiners, and has donated $28,500 per family member and household staff member to McCain Victory 08.  Other terms and conditions may apply.