Two things were stunningly in evidence during today’s interview of GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina (trying to unseat Barbara Boxer in California) by anchor Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

The first is that Chris Wallace does not conform to the media stereotype of a Fox journalist, a thinly veiled Republican operative committed to pushing a conservative agenda. If only interviewers on CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC were so unwilling to accept evasion, half-truths and nostrums from Democrats. Kudos to Wallace for doing his job, not lobbing softballs, and exemplifying journalistic integrity where most people least expect it.

The second is that candidate Fiorina, yet another Tea Party darling, is a fake. Over and over again, Wallace pointed out that she could not achieve the fiscal balance she is advocating (especially keeping all the Bush tax cuts, which she advocates) without reducing entitlements, and asked her to specify cuts she would be willing to make. She not only refused to answer the question, but also kept returning to the infamous “waste, fraud and abuse” solution that has been a staple of conservative and liberal candidates alike for decades. This is nothing but a dodge, and has always been so: a big bureaucracy spending trillions of dollars will always generate huge waste, lots of fraud, and plenty of abuse. You can fight to minimize it, but these lost funds will keep being lost, just as there will always be billions lost to tax delinquency. Reducing “waste, fraud and abuse” is no solution to the deficit, and either Fiorina knows this and is conning voters, or doesn’t and is thus too gullible to be trusted.

And she was exposed on Fox! Imagine that.