Fox host Neil Cavuto and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) were so busy praising Carly Fiorina after Senator Ted Cruz chose her to be his running mate that they “forgot” all about her less-than-stellar business record.

The only discouraging word about Fiorina seemed to be whether or not she could really help Cruz get the nomination.

The guest for the segment was Cruz-supporter Meadows, who praised her unequivocally.

MEADOWS: We’ve seen that, not only through her presidential campaign, but certainly as she’s addressed the issues even in my home state of North Carolina, it’s someone who’s very qualified, very articulate, and has lived the American dream. How better to go from a secretary in a nine-person real estate firm to a potential vice presidential nominee? If that doesn’t give Americans hope, I don’t know what will.

Cavuto was less bowled over. He called Cruz’s announcement “almost a desperation move.”

“Let’s not forget how well Carly did when she was actually not even on the main debate stage,” Meadows said in Fiorina’s defense. […] She won the hearts of millions of Americans.

“No you’re right,” Cavuto agreed. “I covered her for 30 years, Congressman, back in her HP days and back before that, her AT&T days [Cavuto probably meant Lucent]. No, she’s a smart cookie.”

But that “smart cookie” has some serious blemishes on her business record, both as a senior executive at Lucent and then chief executive of Hewlett-Packard.  In fact, nearly 15 years after she was fired from Hewlett-Packard, following a failed merger with Compaq that cost 30,000 people their jobs, Andrew Ross Sorkin noted that HP still had not recovered from her tenure.

Watch the whitewashing below, from the April 27 Your World.

Caricature of Carly Fiorina by DonkeyHotey, via Creative Commons license.