Discussing Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's victory in the Iowa Republican caucuses in a January 4 New York Post column, Fox News contributor Dick Morris and co-writer Eileen McGann stated that Huckabee's “refusal to indulge in negative advertising sent a message to Iowa voters showing his strength under fire.” But during an appearance on the January 1 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Morris criticized as “a stupid move” Huckabee's actions at a December 31 press conference during which Huckabee played an anti-Mitt Romney ad for the assembled media, after stating that he was renouncing negative advertising in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and had decided not to air the ad. On Hannity & Colmes, Morris said: "[I]f you're going to have a negative ad, have it. If you're not going to have it, don't." Later, co-host Alan Colmes asked Morris if Huckabee was “being sly, knowing full well everybody's going to see the ad, I'm not going to have to pay for it? Or did he sincerely believe, 'Aw, you know what? All of a sudden, I don't want to have to show a negative ad'?” Morris responded: “You know, it was probably the latter, but it sure looks like the former.”

Several media outlets subsequently reported on the ad's content, and washingtonpost.com posted video of the advertisement taped from the press conference. After a portion of the ad was aired during Huckabee's January 1 interview on Hannity & Colmes, Huckabee told Colmes and co-host Sean Hannity, “I don't know how you obtained that copy [of the ad] because we didn't give it to anybody. We had a box of CDs of them. We gave them to no one. We showed it in that room for those reporters, and the only way they could have gotten it would be to tape it, I guess, off a camera from the screen.” But during his press conference on December 31, Huckabee said of the ad: “We prepared it, sent it to the stations. It was supposed to start running at noon today.” As Media Matters for America documented, neither Hannity nor Colmes pointed out Huckabee's prior assertion that the ad had been sent “to the stations.” In addition, in response to Huckabee's claim that “the only way they could have gotten it would be to tape it, I guess, off a camera from the screen,” neither pointed out that Fox had obtained a “clean copy” of the ad, as Colmes reported the day before.

From the January 1 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: We just had Governor Huckabee on, Dick. And he's now under fire in the final moments of this campaign. And history is going to judge this as a brilliant move or one that perhaps lost him the caucus here, and that is that he holds this press conference. He shows the ad that he says he's not going to run because he doesn't want to go negative. Do you think there's a chance of a backlash, or does this help him?

MORRIS: Well, I think it was a stupid move. I think that, you know, the -- if you're going to have a negative ad, have it. If you're not going to have it, don't. It's like being a little bit pregnant. But I think that the news media is missing the basic point, which is that he's -- he accuses Romney in that advertisement of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions when Romney passed that whole health-care proposal in Massachusetts. He required -- he said for a $50 co-pay, you can have an elective abortion procedure.

HANNITY: Yeah, but isn't -- but Dick, in fairness, isn't that old news?

MORRIS: And I think that's going to drive the right wing crazy. No, no. That's a brand-new thing, and I think that's going to drive the right wing berserk.

HANNITY: But let me ask you, Dick --

MORRIS: Because it's one thing to have been pro-choice. It's another to have taxpayer funding.

HANNITY: But is it old news, inasmuch as he has discussed at length that he changed his position on abortion? And, I mean, how many different ways does one have to explain it? Or do you think this is one of these issues that just resonates so much in a primary that he's not going to be able to overcome it?

MORRIS: I think this takes it to the next level. In other words, you have about 30 or 40 senators that are pro-life, that want to repeal Roe v. Wade. But you have 70 that feel taxpayer money should not be used to fund abortion. Medicaid money, you know, nationally cannot be used to pay for abortion. If any state covers it on Medicaid, they have to pick up the whole tab.

So this position is sort of the ultimate left-wing position on abortion. And I think the national media is missing the point. This is the 200- -- 500-pound, I guess it is, gorilla in this race.

COLMES: Hey, Dick, welcome back to our show.

MORRIS: Thank you.

COLMES: You worked with Mike Huckabee. You know him a little bit. Was this a -- getting back to the news conference that Sean was talking about, and about which we spoke with the governor a few moments ago, was he being sly, knowing full well everybody's going to see the ad, I'm not going to have to pay for it? Or did he sincerely believe, “Aw, you know what? All of a sudden, I don't want to have to show a negative ad"?

MORRIS: You know, it was probably the latter, but it sure looks like the former.

COLMES: Really?

MORRIS: Queen Victoria once sent a guy to negotiate with the Egyptians over the canal, and they said, “He's too honest. He's too naive.” And she said, “He's the only one I can send. He's so honest, the rogues will think him a rogue, and he's so truthful, they'll swear he's lying.” I think that's what's happening here.

COLMES: So we're to believe that he made a -- he took a day off from the campaign trail, spent $30,000 making ads, and then at the last minute decides, “I'm not going to run them. But I'm going to hold a news conference and show them”?

MORRIS: Yeah. Look, I think it was ridiculous, and I think that it's -- but, again, I don't -- I think that that's a minor footnote. The important thing here --

COLMES: Right.

MORRIS: -- is what that ad said.