Earlier this afternoon, we pointed out that Fox Business host Stuart Varney used an appearance on Fox News' America Live to claim that President Obama is deliberately insulting the United Kingdom -- one of our closest allies -- because of his family's supposed decades-old resentment of that nation's colonial rule of Obama's father's Kenyan homeland.

Seeking to explain Obama's purported “betray[al]” of British nuclear secrets to Russia, Varney cited an “increasing feeling in Britain that the administration in America doesn't like the British, for whatever reason.” Varney provided four reasons why the British supposedly have that feeling, one of which was the administration's return of a bust of Winston Churchill that had sat in the Oval Office during the Bush administration. Host Megyn Kelly homed in on the bust example, asking why Obama would do such a thing. Varney then alleged that Obama had returned the bust because “President Obama's father, being a native Kenyan, disliked the [British] colonial administration in his native Kenya.”

That is an extraordinary and -- if true -- damning allegation. Such allegations, when made on an avowed “straight news” program, demand evidence. But Varney offered no evidence whatsoever. Instead, Varney portrayed his claim as conventional wisdom that is “out there.”

One of two things is true: Either Fox News is sitting on a story that would be massively damaging to the Obama administration, or they are employing a hack who pushes libelous, evidence-free speculation during its news reports.

It is incumbent on Fox to figure out which of those explanations is true. The network already has enough problems with race-baiters and conspiracy theorists on its airwaves without adding a new one.

Roger Ailes must immediately demand that Varney produce evidence for today's claims; not shadowy Beckian “connections” but actual proof that President Obama's familial antipathies are driving his foreign policy.

If Varney cannot produce such evidence, he should be fired immediately.