Author Tom Ricks on Fox News before his interview was cut short. (Neon Tommy Screenshot)

Defense policy expert Tom Ricks, who told Fox News' Jon Scott in an interview on Monday that he thought the network operated "as a wing of the Republican Party," vehemently denied reports that he apologized for the comment.

In a blog post published Tuesday on ForeignPolicy.com, where Ricks is a contributing editor, he said accounts of what transpired after the interview were unfounded.

"Unfortunately the Hollywood Reporter didn't ask for specifics, or even ask me about it -- and I am not hard to find,"  the author wrote. "(Dude, that's an automatic F in Journalism 101.)"

Ricks serves as a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy think tank, and is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes for military reporting.

He clarified by sending a copy of the note he sent to Fox's executive vice president of news, Michael Clemente, to Politico. Clemente had told the media that Ricks apologized privately after the interview.

"To clarify my comments for you: I did not apologize," he wrote.

"If it helps him sell books, good for him," Clemente said in response.

Ricks told Talking Points Memo that "when the facts aren’t on their side, they attack the person.”

The back-and-forth between Ricks and Clemente in the last 48 hours may have produced more controversy than if the interview had been carried out to its entirety. Ricks said that he was surprised his interview had been cut short, particularly because he said he had told a producer what he had been planning to say before going on the air.

In addition to his Republican Party comment, Ricks said the network's coverage of the recent attack in Benghazi had been too politically motivated and lacked focus on the real story.

"How many security contractors died in Iraq, do you know?" Ricks asked.

"I don't," Scott answered.

"No, nobody does, because nobody cared," Ricks said. "So when I see this focus on what was essentially a small firefight... I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political." 

This is not the first time Fox News has come under attack on-air for promoting Republican views. In 2006, Bill Clinton clashed with Chris Wallace after he was asked about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

"I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises," Clinton said. "I'm being asked this on the Fox Network... And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn't do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much — same people."

"So you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me," Clinton declared.

"It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of," he said. "You didn't ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris."

Reach Assistant News Editor Michelle Toh here.