On the July 9 edition of Fox News' On the Record, Newt Gingrich pointed out to host Greta Van Susteren that she should know what a wonderful person Sarah Palin because “you've probably covered her more than anybody in the country.”

There's a likely reason for that, which neither Gingrich nor Van Susteren mentioned: Van Susteren's husband, John Coale, served as an adviser to Palin after the 2008 presidential campaign.

As we've detailed, Coale said he started Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, as well as a legal defense fund for her. SarahPAC, by the way, issued the Palin-centric video that Van Susteren was promoting on her show for the second night in a row during Gingrich's appearance.

While Van Susteren has denied any close ties with Palin, she has also repeatedly failed to disclose her husband's ties -- not while promoting the SarahPAC video last night, and not last November when she "hopped on the bus" with Palin as she was promoting her memoir.

Fox News' evening hosts apparently have free rein to merge commentary and advocacy, but this is basic journalistic ethics -- a clear conflict of interest that demands full disclosure. Van Susteren still doesn't seem to understand that.