On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace grilled Republican hopeful Ron Paul over passages in his 1987 book Freedom Under Siege, in which he had wrote “The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim – frequently a victim of his own lifestyle – but this same individual victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for his care,”, Wallace asked if Paul still felt that way.

Former Iowa Caucuses-winner Mike Huckabee apparently wants to spend his post-Christmas days deleting hate mail from his inbox. In an interview with Fox News Sunday‘s Chris Wallace, Huckabee delivered a fairly blistering assessment of Iowa frontrunner Rep. Ron Paul and his “fanatical believers.”

On Sunday morning’s Fox News Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney put on a veritable clinic on the dual pillars of his campaign: taking all sides of an issue, and taking no side of an issue. When host Chris Wallace asked him whether he would have invaded Iraq, given what we know now, Romney breakdanced around the question. He did reveal that it’s “fortunate” the troops are out of Iraq, but that President Obama was wrong to take the troops out of Iraq, but that, as president, Romney wouldn’t put troops back in Iraq.

Cable News personalities are known for, at times, revealing an inflated sense of self-worth and influence on the field of public opinion. While it is hard to quantify who actually holds more sway than the next opiniotainer, the clashing of egos is always more entertaining than the egos themselves. Take for example the recent back and forth between MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Fox News Chris Wallace, who find themselves in a bit of a fairly public and still blossoming feud.

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, struggling Republican candidate Rick Perry defended his series of many gaffes on the campaign trail, and acknowledged he was still rusty on his civics. “I don’t have memorized all of the Supreme Court judges,” Perry admitted.

On Thursday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough warned Mitt Romney that he was heading into the lion’s den when he sits down for an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday December 18. “Chris Wallace has never made a secret of the fact that he loathes Mitt Romney — has never liked him,” Scarborough revealed. “Anybody that knows Chris Wallace at Fox has said the same thing. Chris Wallace, of course, will deny it, and then throw an insult around because that’s what he’s done in the past.”

Jon Huntsman is making a big push for New Hampshire. The candidate, who is now regularly landing in 2% of the polls, was on Fox News Sunday today discussing his bid, and, with his poll numbers modestly on the rise in New Hampshire but his support apparently much greater among independents, host Chris Wallace wondered whether Huntsman was considering an independent run– or at least not backing the ultimate Republican nominee. What resulted was an awkward moment in which Huntsman repeated several times that he is a Republican, ultimately saying that, yes, he will endorse the Republican nominee.

On today’s Fox News Sunday, the impact of the overall economic situation in the country on the Presidential elections was at the forefront of discussion, and Juan Williams and host Chris Wallace got into a heated discussion over the impact of Occupy Wall Street on the national discourse, one in which Williams, interrupted, did not feel he was given fair time.

Today has not been a particularly good day in publicity for Newt Gingrich on the Sunday talk show circuit. After This Week featured a particularly derisive George Will, the Fox News Sunday panel went to town on him, beginning with Brit Hume highlighting his many vulnerabilities, Juan Williams comparing him to a Thanksgiving Day parade float and only Bill Kristol putting in a good word for the former Speaker.

The Congressional Super-Committee which rose out of last summer’s debt deadlock in Congress has a deadline approaching, and it appears nowhere near cutting a budget deal with hours to the deadline. With that in mind, both the Democratic and Republican chairs of the committee– Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, respectively–took to the Sunday talk show circuit to explain their impending failure, with Sen. Murray blaming Republicans for not having a mentality of “shared sacrifice” while Rep. Hensarling argued Democrats wanted to raise taxes exorbitantly.

On Fox News Sunday this weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) continued the tradition of politicizing foreign policy by accusing President Obama of politicizing foreign policy, telling anchor Chris Wallace that “Iraq and Afghanistan is being run out of Chicago, not Washington, in terms of decisions.” Graham also beat the familiar drum that “Israel has been thrown under the bus” by the administration, falsely claiming that the President’s “standing in the state of Israel is very low,” despite the fact that 81% of Israelis approve of his policies.

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Michele Bachmann doubled down on her opposition to the United States getting involved in the Libyan conflict, saying it was “wrong for the United States to go into Libya.” Wallace questioned whether Muammar Gaddafi would still be in power if she had been president. “Well he may be, but I stand by that decision.”

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain visited Fox News Sunday to discuss his recent bump in poll numbers. Host Chris Wallace introduced Cain as a “political long-shot” who has jumped “into the top tier” following several rounds of debates, showing that support for Cain has jumped from 6 percent on August 29th to 17 percent on September 25th — a jump that has also resulted in lower numbers for both Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

On Fox News Sunday this past weekend, Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan (R) was invited on to offer his early response to President Barack Obama’s revamped deficit reduction plan. It is set to include, among other provisions, $4 trillion in savings, $340 billion in Medicare / Medicaid reform, and $800 billion in revenue increases, which includes a new plan to ensure those in the highest tax bracket pay at least the same percentage of earnings as those in the middle class. Ryan said he’s trying to keep an open mind where this plan is concerned, but doesn’t know if “any good will come” out of a Democratic President attempting to “take on” entitlement programs like Medicare.

“From what he hear originally,” shared Ryan, “it looks like it’s just more price controls and reimbursement cuts to doctors and other health care providers, which simply leads to restricted access and denied care to seniors.” Ryan was also, perhaps unsurprisingly, wary of the President’s likely tax increase for the wealthy.

Former White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton appeared on Fox News Sunday this morning to debate Karl Rove on job creation, but Rove didn’t stop at attacking Burton and President Obama. The former Bush Chief of Staff also lashed out at host Bret Baier for exposing the rigidity of the GOP presidential field by asking them if they would walk away from a deal with $10 in spending cuts for every $1 of tax revenue, telling Baier, “With all due respect, that was a lousy question for a debate.”

Republican Congressman Paul Ryan appeared on Fox News Sunday ready to scold President Obama and Democrats for not putting forth a specific budget plan, like he had, that could have tackled the debt crisis and avoided a credit rating downgrade. Yet Chris Wallace reminded Ryan that Republicans are not blameless in the reasoning behind why S&P downgraded the rating of the nation’s debt.

The roundtable discussion portion of the Sunday morning news shows is often the most entertaining and illuminating segment of the entire program. Given that the top-of-the show politician guests try their hardest (and often succeed) to stick to their talking points and to avoid going off script, it’s often left to the roundtable participants to provide an element of unpredictability to the Sunday morning festivities. Of the three shows with weekly roundtable segments, in my opinion, week in and week out there is a clear hierarchy between the shows based on the variety of topics discussed, the diversity of guests and the overall enjoyment of hearing the conversation.

Despite persistent questioning from Chris Wallace, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner refused to acknowledge what his plans were just in case the debt ceiling is not raised before August 2nd. Insisting that his plan was only to get Congress to raise the debt ceiling, Geithner seemed to demonstrate just how fearful he is of what might happen by hesitating to even discuss the possibility of any contingency plan.

Chris Wallace spoke with Don Imus this morning and shared his thoughts on Michele Bachmann‘s headaches and the News Corp. phone hacking scandal. While Imus found some laughs in each story, Wallace said Bachmann’s migraines should not disqualify her from running for President and insisted Fox News is giving plenty of attention to the controversy with its parent company.

The town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee is having their own version of the Ground Zero Mosque scandal, as an Islamic center proposed in the town is facing significant opposition. Among those opposed to building it is Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who appeared on Fox News Sunday today and asserted that communities “have a right” to ban mosques from their community.

Although Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was slightly unsure whether any of his Republicans colleagues seriously don’t want to raise the debt ceiling, he was on much firmer ground regarding his own future political goals. On Fox News Sunday, Bret Baier asked him if he stands by his previous statement that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term President.” McConnell confirmed that his goal remains unchanged.

Senate Minority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell discussed the debt ceiling negotiations with Bret Baier on Fox News Sunday. McConnell was in agreement with Speaker John Boehner’s decision not to support a large deficit deal, yet also made a curious assertion that none of his Republican colleagues have ever claimed they don’t want to raise the debt ceiling.

The ongoing budget battle between President Obama and congressional Republicans is giving many an opportunity to weigh in with their thoughts on Obama’s governing style. While some Democrats believe Obama is not aggressive enough in the budget negotiations and other commentators think he is something else unflattering, at least one panelist during a conversation on Fox News Sunday suggested they are tired of seeing Obama always scold somebody.

In case Jon Stewart hasn’t made this perfectly clear several times, Jon Stewart appeared on Fox News to debate Chris Wallace on his program two weeks ago, where he was accused of being an “activist” rather than a comedian, and was accused of repeating falsehoods by claiming Fox News viewers are “consistently the most uninformed.” Stewart had copped to the mistake with a segment dedicated to Fox News’ falsehoods, but this was apparently not enough: he gave Fox News his entire second segment yet again, concluding, with Wallace’s words, that they are “crybabies.”

It’s official: Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace and Rep. Michele Bachmann have buried the hatchet. On tonight’s Hannity, the Congresswoman and candidate for the Republican nomination in 2012 told host Sean Hannity that she had received a call from Wallace apologizing for asking her if she was a “flake” on his program on Sunday, “and I am happy to accept his apology.”