Megyn Kelly had a mini meltdown when Democratic guest (and News Hounds Top Dog) Bernard Whitman refused to confine his answers to Kelly’s right-wing framing of a debate about President Obama’s decision to appear on The View and not hold meetings with world leaders during the U.N.’s General Assembly.

Kelly began the segment with a clip of Chris Wallace grilling Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs over the same point. Kelly’s voice dripped with disdain as she said, “As (President Obama) leaves to sit down with Whoopi Goldberg and the other ladies on The View this afternoon, the White House says his schedule is too jam-packed to squeeze in any face-to-face meetings this week… The critics are holding up what is basically a televised campaign appearance to ask where the president’s priorities lie. Is that fair?”

Kelly’s Republican guest, Brad Blakeman, insisted that a phone conversation with world leaders is “no substitute” for a face-to-face meeting. He added, “The fact is, we’ve just had the largest terrorist attack to the American people on September 11^th, the 11^th anniversary, our ambassador’s dead, three other Americans dead. Millions taking to the streets against America, burning the flag. Europe is in an economic meltdown, China’s building a blue ocean Navy and the president doesn’t have time to meet with world leaders? It should be the other way around. He shouldn’t have time to do The View. But this White House has priorities and to this president, politics is show business.

Hmm, that doesn’t seem to directly answer the “is it fair” question. But Kelly’s standards for staying on point seem to be a bit more lenient for Republicans than Democrats. Here’s what Whitman said that got her in a temper:

Well, I think it’s absolutely laughable that Chris Wallace is schooling the president on how to conduct foreign affairs. Let’s look at the record. Let’s look at the facts. Let’s look at what this president has accomplished in 3 ½ years. He ended the war in Iraq, a war that we never should have gotten into…

Kelly interrupted. “Come on now.”

Whitman replied, “Excuse me, let me finish.”

“No, no,” Kelly said. “Let’s stay on point,” she now insisted. “We’re not looking back over three years to talk about a history lesson.”

No, of course not. She needed to focus on something she and her Republican guest could more easily attack President Obama over, not to put in context with his long record of successes. She continued, “The question is, is it fair for them to criticize him for meeting with the ladies of The View but not world leaders. It’s not about whether he has a good foreign policy record or not.”

Whitman answered, “It absolutely is. We’re talking about policy. We’re talking about benefits. We ought to talk about what the benefits are to the American people and how the American people view this leader to determine whether or not his policy is working.”

Kelly began over-talking him. “As the anchor, I will decide what we ought to talk about. Because my producers and I spend a lot of time in the morning trying to decide. I want to give you the floor but I want to stay on point.”

And it’s just a coincidence that that point is the same one the right-wing media and Republicans have seized on.

Whitman was not cowed. “With all due respect, I’m not talking about what we should be talking about, I’m talking about what the American people should be talking about. We should look at what the results have been, what this president has been able to deliver in terms of foreign policy, how the American people view this leader, even your Fox News poll has him at a 54/39 advantage over Mitt Romney when it comes to foreign policy. So obviously, whatever this president is doing to end wars, to get rid of Osama Bin Laden, to take out terrorists, is working.”

Kelly interrupted again. “I just don’t think you do President Obama any favors in arguing his side when you won’t stay on point.” Right. Just looking out for the Prez.

But Kelly was obviously rattled. Her voice rose and she said with exasperation, “Let’s just assume for purposes of argument he’s been the best president on foreign policy we’ve ever had. The question is whether THIS MAKES SENSE!”

Unlike Kelly, Whitman seemed to remain cool as a cucumber throughout. He answered, “What’s fair is to sort of look at how this president operates, look at the results that he gets.” Whitman added that it was “so much the better” if Obama had a chance to speak to Americans from The View.

Now Kelly played devil’s advocate with Blakeman, asking whether Obama really needs to meet in person because “there are ways of communicating without sitting down face to face. What is the grand benefit of being across from one another at the table?”

It’s worth noting that Kelly often makes a stab at this kind of balance in the middle of a debate, after she has already well established the other side. And then she’ll return to conservative talking points at the end.

Sure enough, she moved on to highlighting a clip from Obama’s appearance on 60 Minutes last night that, she said, is “getting him in trouble in some circles today” because it seemed to paint Netanyahu’s comments as “noise.”

Somehow, Kelly forgot to ask Whitman his opinion but he was smart enough to jump in anyway. After Blakeman said it was “dangerous” for Obama not to meet with Netanyahu in New York (and Kelly made a snide joke about Netanyahu getting “Whoopi” to relay “a couple of questions”), Whitman said, “I think what’s dangerous is the fact that Romney wants to outsource our foreign policy decisions to Israel.”

For refusing to be boxed in by Fox’s anti-Obama framing of the debate and making his own, effective argument regardless, Whitman is a Top Dog again. 

You can watch the video here.