Following several weeks of increasingly hostile exchanges between FOX News managing editor and chief Washington correspondent Brit Hume and Nartional Public Radio senior correspondent and FOX News Channel contributor Juan Williams on Fox Broadcasting Company's FOX News Sunday, host Chris Wallace read a viewer email on October 24:

WALLACE: And a warm and fuzzy request from Malia Reid of Georgia: “Could you make me feel better and ask Juan and Brit to show the love and hug each other some Sunday? This is just politics, and I would feel better” -- I can't believe this -- “if they appeared to like each other.”

But far from repairing their apparently contentious relationship, Hume and Williams seemed to escalate hostilities on the November 21 broadcast of FOX News Sunday, when Hume began to laugh with apparent contempt while Williams was speaking. And later in the same broadcast, Hume condescended to give Williams a civics lesson during a discussion of recent resignations and new appointments in President George W. Bush's cabinet, including the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state.

From the November 21 edition of FOX News Sunday:

WILLIAMS: I think this is a problem. You know, everybody in Washington was joking this week that the kisses that the president had for both Condi Rice and Margaret Spellings. And I think it literally looks like kissing cousins now throughout the government. And the problem is, you need dissent. You need dissent everywhere. And we had all these fights, you know, in the NBA, and the president rescuing his Secret Service agent [in Chile].

You know, what's really telling is the lack of, now, combative, different ideas coming into this administration. And I think it suggests the possibility of arrogance, overreaching on the part of Republicans.

[Hume laughter]

I go back to what happened with [House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay [R-TX] this week. Brit can laugh, but you think about what happened with DeLay this week, and the Republicans say, “Oh, we'll give you a pass in case you're indicted.” This is the same Republican Party that says that they stand for the little guy in America? I thought that was ridiculous.

WALLACE: You thought appointing Margaret Spellings as education secretary shows arrogance?

WILLIAMS: No, no, the arrogance, the overreaching is you have a cadre of people who all agree with you about everything.

WALLACE: But they're his Cabinet.

WILLIAMS: No, they're his Cabinet, and therefore they're supposed to be smart, thoughtful people who know a great deal about their area of expertise. Instead, you have people who --

HUME: Wait a minute. What makes you think those people don't know about the area? Do you say that Condoleezza Rice doesn't know foreign policy?

WILLIAMS: Of course she knows foreign policy.

HUME: OK, what about Margaret Spellings? Does she know education policy?

WILLIAMS: No, but the point is, that you don't know and I don't know Condoleezza Rice's perspective on issues, on a range of issues, because she has not had to come forward and make and articulate those positions. Instead, she has been side by side with the president. We will now learn what her positions may be.

So it's not a matter, as you said, of whether she knows foreign policy.

HUME: Juan, Juan, it is not the job of the secretary of any department in any presidency to have separate positions from the president. The president is supposed to be -- let me remind you now, this is fairly basic government -- in charge of the executive branch of government. And when he puts people who support him in charge of those agencies, he's doing what presidents are supposed to do.

WILLIAMS: And so he's supposed to -- in other words, Condi Rice is just supposed to be a “yes” woman -- “Yes, Mr. President. We'll do exactly what you said, Mr. President”? That's a fear. That is not an American government.

Let me tell you about American government for a second. American government is supposed to include people --

HUME: Who say no to the president?

WILLIAMS: -- coming together who say -- occasionally, yes.

WILLIAM KRISTOL (Weekly Standard editor): Wait a second. Why do you assume Condi Rice has few --

[crosstalk]

KRISTOL: Colin Powell has these well-developed views as opposed to Condi Rice? That's ludicrous. Condi Rice has much more of a paper trail and much more of a record of having her own views on foreign policy than Colin Powell, with all due respect to Secretary Powell.

WILLIAMS: Condi Rice --

WALLACE: Look, folks, we can continue this conversation. We're going to take a commercial. We're going to come back. We'll keep going here.

[...]

WILLIAMS: Well, I just wanted to make a quick point. When you look at the consolidation of power, not just in the Cabinet but just across Washington now, you have Senator [Arlen] Specter [R-PA] -- Senator Specter is essentially hogtied as the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has to do exactly what the president says on every nomination set forth, otherwise he's not in keeping with the true-blue conservatives, or true red, I should say, conservatives.

In addition to which, what about this debt ceiling, Brit Hume? Aren't you upset, as a true conservative, at the amount of spending going on in this administration?

HUME: When I stopped covering the House of Representatives all those years ago -- Chris, you remember, we did that together.

WALLACE: Yes.

HUME: Didn't you think you'd never have to hear about the debt ceiling again?

[laughter]

Juan, you know what happens with the debt ceiling? They raise it every year. They even raise it during the years when we're in surplus. So if you're staying up late at night worrying about the debt ceiling, let me put you at ease. Not to worry.

WILLIAMS: In other words, the fact that the government just keeps spending and spending and spending and everybody is worried about the amount of this expense --

HUME: Everybody's not.

WILLIAMS: The fact that President Clinton left a surplus and we now have a huge deficit --

HUME: Let me give you a way to look at that may allow you to sleep more peacefully. Always measure these things against the overall size of the economy, and when you do, you'll feel better, I promise.

WILLIAMS: You know what? This is why you need dissent and why you need other voices in that Cabinet.

WALLACE: We have dissent on this panel.