Common Sense: Keeping Your Word

Do you know what bugs me about Sen. Jeffords’ decision? He broke a contract, plain and simple.

I'm not taking sides. I'd be just as offended if a Democrat suddenly hopped fences mid-stream too. And here's why: you ran as one thing, you are now another.

Take me. When I came to Fox from another network, I signed a piece of paper — a contract — that said I would be here for x-amount of time for x-amount of dollars. But that I would be here. Not somewhere else.  Not at CNBC, or CNN, or MSNBC. Here at Fox.

What if you all suddenly turned on your TVs tomorrow and I wasn't here? Actually, some of you might welcome that. But what if I suddenly popped up on CNBC, when I was still under contract to Fox?  Legally, I couldn't do it. Morally, I shouldn't do it. Professionally, I wouldn't do it.

Now, you don't sign pieces of paper when you run for office, but you take a far more solemn oath. You make a commitment to the people who elected you that you are what you say you are and will continue to be who you say you are for as long as you are in that office.

It's called your word and you should keep it.

I'm sure there are a lot of Vermonters who elected Jim Jeffords because he was, and probably is, a wonderful guy. But you can't tell me many Republicans in that state didn't elect him because he was a Republican guy.  He campaigned as such and he won as such. And there are a lot of strictly party line voters, who do vote as such.

Silly them to think the guy they're voting for is the guy they're voting for.

Fox can always rip up my contract and some of you have even suggested they do.  But until they do, I have an obligation, to them and to you, to keep my word.  When the contract ends, the terms end. But in the interim, those terms are a bond — a promise. And not to be taken lightly, or to be dismissed cavalierly.

We expect silly TV anchors to keep their word. Silly me, to think our elected officials should keep theirs.

- Watch Neil Cavuto's Common Sense weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on Your World with Neil Cavuto.  And send your comments to: cavuto@foxnews.com