Chris Wallace's Thrilling Return to 'Imus in the Morning'

The beginning, middle, and end of Chris Wallace’s appearance today can be summed up in one word: ugly.

After bailing the last two weeks, Wallace wasted no time hurling insults, even though Imus had just complimented his guest on looking much younger than his 63 years

“The Chilean story—I was watching and I was thinking, there’s nobody who doesn’t have their heart warmed by this story,” Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, said. “And then I thought, you know what? There may be one person in the world who isn’t happy by this story. There is one person in the world whose heart isn’t warmed. And that’s you.”

Obviously Wallace had not tuned in to yesterday’s program or he would have known otherwise. He also might have learned that Imus worked in two mines in Arizona, and therefore has immense compassion for the 33 miners who were trapped underground.

Thereby charged with watching The Today Show or Fox & Friends instead of Imus in the Morning, Wallace fessed up, then borrowed a move from the I-Man’s book and started talking about himself.

“Once in my life, I went down deep into a mine in Illinois with Ronald Reagan when he was running for President in 1980, and all I could think was, get me out of here,” Wallace said, then noted the wide range of awful jobs people have. “I’m very, very lucky,” he noted, and Imus agreed.

Rand Paul“Had there not been a Mike Wallace, I’d have been getting my coffee from you this morning,” he told his guest, who hosted a debate recently between Rand Paul and Jack Conway, the two men vying to fill a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky.

Wallace commented that Paul, not normally the most engaging person, went after Conway pretty effectively once the debate got going. Imus’s take? Paul “seems like an alien.”

And Wallace probably wished he was on another planet after asking Imus if he empathized with Rick Sanchez, who was recently fired from CNN after making anti-Semitic comments.

“I thought he was stupid,” Imus said, then called Sanchez “not man enough” to simply apologize. “He was blaming working long days. He’s a coward, and a weasel."

Imus got so fired up he threatened to beat down on Wallace, were he present in studio and Imus’s shoulder not sore.

“Your shoulder hurts because you’re sitting there patting yourself on the back,” Wallace said, then revisited Imus’s storied past as a miner, observing, “Just our luck—you found the two safest mines in America.”

For the record: Wallace has no idea who the guests will be on his Sunday morning news show this week. “I hope you’re always number three in the ratings,” Imus said.

-Julie Kanfer