Imagine for a moment that a major newspaper published a front-page story pointing out ties between a Democratic member of Congress and the terror group Hamas. Imagine if the paper reported that the member of Congress had told attendees at a pro-Hamas rally to “pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women.” Imagine if the paper reported that a judge had thrown him out of a Hamas murder trial as an “obvious collaborator.”

Imagine that rather than deny any of those allegations or renounce his past support for a terrorist organization, that Democratic member of Congress told the paper that Hamas was a “legitimate force.”

How do you think Fox News would respond?

They'd be doing wall to wall coverage, wouldn't they? There would be theme music and a logo -- “Terrorist In The House?” with that question mark if he was lucky. He'd be denounced by the network's daytime hosts, and Fox's crack terrorism “experts” would be called upon to question how he could remain in Congress.

And Heaven help him if he were to venture onto the network to defend himself; he'd be subject to withering criticism and probably have “Terrorist Sympathizer” added to his captions.

If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at our reports on Fox's coverage of Imam Rauf and the Park51 Islamic cultural center.

The reason I bring this up is that the New York Times published a front-page story today on Rep. Peter King's (R-NY) unrepentant support for the IRA. And I'm not seeing any of the above hoopla on Fox.

The story finally came up during King's interview on America's Newsroom. Watch how Martha MacCallum handles the issue:

Notice how she doesn't even start the interview with the incredible disclosure that the chairman of the Homeland Security committee has supported a terrorist organization. When she gets around to it, she asks an open-ended question, then sits silently as he completely ducks the question, choosing to talk not about his support for the IRA but instead about how much he has been praised for his work on the Northern Ireland peace process.

That's about it. Apparently satisfied with King's non-answer, MacCallum moves on to other topics.

And that's how Fox News handles the revelation that a GOP congressman supported a foreign terror group.