Rick Santorum

Soledad O'Brien's CNN show is suffering some pretty horrific ratings, and yet she still had the gall to ask Rick Santorum's communications director why the candidate won't drop out of the presidential race.

The quarterly numbers for O'Brien's morning show Starting Point were the lowest in more than a decade at CNN for that time slot, in fact. She averaged less than 100,000 viewers per day from the age 25-54 crowd. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Early frontrunner for the most preposterous political analogy of the year . . .

On today's Morning Joe, Tina Brown said Rick Santorum was "like Judas Iscariot."  And just what was Santorum's sin that merited comparing him to the man who betrayed Jesus Christ for thirty pieces of silver?  That Santorum, 15 years after the fact, now regrets having supported Arlen Specter when his then-fellow Republican senator from Pennsylvania ran for president.  View the video after the jump.

Update/correction (30 March 2012, 16:12 p.m. EDT): Brewer is no longer employed with MSNBC. I was going off of outdated information on her Facebook fan page. The post below is corrected accordingly.

"A compelling, alarming case against the GOP and its 'War on Women.' Lest you think it can't happen here, just ask Iranian women how conservative, religious fanatics ripped their rights away." [see screen capture below page break; h/t @mattjmobile]

That's how former MSNBC host Contessa Brewer introduced her Facebook fans to a March 25 New York magazine piece by Frank Rich entitled "Stag Party: The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women."

The journalists at Good Morning America on Tuesday appeared shocked that a "sour" Rick Santorum dared to aggressively oppose a New York Times reporter, hyperventilating that the Republican presidential candidate has gone to "war against the media."

Former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos insisted that the "wear and tear of a long, tough campaign" is beginning to show on Santorum. He piled on, "His Cinderella story has gone a bit sour." Reporter Berman, who often can't refuse using over-the-top language for his stories, began, "Well, cover your ears and hide the children. Dirty words have hit the presidential race." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Today's starter topic: With his chances of winning the GOP nomination decreasing as time goes by, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum said in an interview that he would accept an offer to be the Republican vice presidential candidate if he were offered it by likely presidential nominee Mitt Romney:

Saturday's front-page New York Times story by Susan Saulny focused on the Santorum campaign in Louisiana before Santorum's easy win in the Republican primary there: "On the Right, Santorum Has Women's Vote."

Saulny emphasized the religious angle of Santorum's appeal. The condescending story provided slight corrective to the paper's misleading previous coverage assuming Santorum lacked support from women, but maintained the unsubstantiated idea, embraced by the Times, that moderate Republican women are turned off by appeals to social conservatism.

CBS's Allen Pizzey completely whitewashed the struggling European economy on CBS Sunday Morning to bash the Republican presidential candidates' attack on President Obama's economic policies. Pizzey zeroed-in on Germany's lower unemployment rate and cited left-leaning Professor James Walston, who claimed that "the candidates are dealing in caricatures of Europe that are about 90% wrong."

The journalist played clips from Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, who defended the U.S. Constitution and ripped "European socialism." He condescended in reply, "If you're a candidate who wants to move to the White House, why worry about details?" Pizzey also turned to a European woman who insulted the Republican candidates' intelligence: "I just hope that most Americans are just more intelligent than those politicians" [audio clips available here; video below the jump].

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum had a very testy exchange with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny at a campaign stop in Wisconsin Sunday evening.

In the midst of the encounter, Santorum angrily said, "Stop lying...Quit distorting our words...It's bulls--t!" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Failure to heed Rush Limbaugh's Thursday warning relating to another matter ("If I were you, I would regard every AP story, particularly this year, as nothing more than a propaganda piece for the reelection of Barack Obama") is allowing the Associated Press to perpetuate what I demonstrated on Friday is a totally unsupported falsehood concerning a statement made by presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

What Santorum said was a clearly conditional statement (full context and here): "If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future." Here is what the AP's headline writers and the wire service's Will Weissert twisted things on Friday (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes):

On Friday's The Ed Show on MSNBC, host Ed Schultz and MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe - formerly of Newsweek - drew attention to a woman at a shooting range who recently encouraged Rick Santorum to "pretend it's Obama" while the GOP presidential candidate was firing at a target.

After Schultz noted that Santorum criticized the comment when it was brought to his attention, Wolffe warned viewers:

Rush Limbaugh was right yesterday when he suggested that "If I were you, I would regard every AP (Associated Press) story, particularly this year, as nothing more than a propaganda piece for the reelection of Barack Obama." Rush fan Matt Drudge, who currently has a deliberately misleading AP report linked at the top of his Drudge Report, would do well to heed Rush's suggestion.

The AP story by Will Weissert concerns what GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said yesterday about Mitt Romney. What Santorum actually said was that “If they’re going to be a little different (Romney compared to President Barack Obama), we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future.” Notice that the statement is conditional, and that if Romney can demonstrate that he is more than "a little different," Santorum's concern is no longer valid. That's not what Weissert's headline or copy portray (HT to a NewsBusters emailer; bold is mine):

"I appreciate that you are correctly fact-checking the Republican claims."

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell actually said this to Obama Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Wednesday in a discussion about oil and gas prices (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberal comedian John Fugelsang has appeared for three straight days on CNN's Starting Point as a panel member. Although simply listed as a "political comedian," Fugelsang has offered some outrageous liberal commentary during his time as a CNN guest.

For instance, on Wednesday morning he cracked a joke about Rick Santorum being a "homophobe." He previously called Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) a "rude lunatic" and ridiculed Catholics who follow their church's teaching on birth control. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Uniquely among the broadcast network evening newscasts on Monday, NBC Nightly News correspondent Andrea Mitchell focused attention on Rick Santorum's appearance with a Christian pastor who recently introduced the GOP presidential candidate at an event in a controversial manner. Mitchell introduced her piece:

CNN's Piers Morgan on Monday actually asked Karen Santorum if her husband Rick is "anti-women?"

Without batting an eye, Mrs. Santorum gave an answer that would put this entire issue to rest if her husband were a Democrat (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The latest New York Times' "Long Run" profile on Saturday's front page featured Rick Santorum ("A Passionate Persona Forged in a Brutal Defeat"), accused by reporter Katharine Seelye of having "contributed to the circuslike atmosphere" in the case of Terry Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman involved in a controversial "right-to-die" case: "The spectacle left much of the public aghast."

One reason why the public felt that way was the coverage of liberal outlets like the Times, slanted heavily toward the view of Terry's husband Michael, who fiercely advocated pulling the plug.

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose accused GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum of focusing too much on foreign policy and social issues, instead of the economy: "You talk about President Obama being an appeaser. You talk about [Obama] being soft on pornography and those kinds of things, rather than the bread and butter economic issues that you say are essential to who will win."

Earlier in the interview, Rose hinted at the left-leaning talking point that the Republican Party was waging a "war on women." He asked the former Pennsylvania senator, "Do you believe that there are particular issues of concern to women more than other voters?" [audio clips available here; video below the jump]

A rather testy exchange on today's Morning Joe, with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski going at it with Rick Santorum.  A full five minutes of Santorum's segment were devoted to questioning him on his views on contraception and religious freedom.  

Toward the end, seemingly to Scarborough's surprise, Santorum said that "yeah, sure" he thought Scarborough, like the MSM at large, was attempting to pigeonhole him on the matter.  Video after the jump.

On ABC's World News on Saturday, host David Muir played a clip of an ad from the far left group MoveOn.org attacking Republicans on the issues of abortion and contraception, and asked correspondent David Kerley for his take on the ad.

Without noting that President Obama raised the issue of contraception by requiring some religious institutions to pay for contraceptives for their employees, or that ABC's very own George Stephanopoulos had bizarrely raised the issue even earlier in a Republican presidential debate, persisting to get an answer from Mitt Romney, Kerley blamed Republicans for "talking about contraception" as he asserted that the GOP had handed Democrats a "gift."

After playing the ad, host Muir wondered:

In light of Rick Santorum's promise to "vigorously enforce" federal obscenity laws, CNN questioned whether any candidate should even be talking about pornography right now. Host Fredricka Whitfield expressed her disbelief that the subject was even in the news conversation, during Friday's 11 a.m. hour of Newsroom.

Santorum has not made the issue the centerpiece of his campaign, as GOP strategist Ana Navarro pointed out. It is, however, an important matter for social conservatives who make up a strong voting bloc for the candidate. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Zoraida Sambolin questioned Rick Santorum's appeal with women voters nationwide as she targeted his "ultra-conservative" positions that "some women don't relate to," on Wednesday's Early Start.

Sambolin challenged Santorum's success among women voters in the deep south by noting that nationwide he lags behind President Obama in a recent poll of women voters. [Video below the break.]

With conservative friends like these, who needs liberals?

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, but token conservative S.E. Cupp on today's Now with Alex Wagner blurted out on air, unprompted, the sort of ignorant, bigoted view of conservative evangelicals that you'd expect from a liberal panelist.

You have to wonder whether HBO's Bill Maher is losing his mind, trying to draw attention to boost ratings, or really believes he can say anything he wants about conservatives and liberals will support him.

After ridiculing Alabama and Mississippi voters Tuesday as being "toothless," Maher took to Twitter with an even far more vile comment about Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (serious vulgarity warning):

On Tuesday's The Last Word on MSNBC, liberals were once again hearing allegedly "coded" messages. During a discussion of Rick Santorum's GOP primary victories in Alabama and Mississippi, guest and talk radio host Mark Thompson absurdly seemed to suggest that Santorum's announcement speech that he gave in Pennsylvania back in June 2011 contained a "coded message" aimed at winning Alabama nine months later by appealing to racist sentiments.

After host Lawrence O'Donnell asked if he had seen "anything surprising" in Tuesday's election results, Thompson began his ridiculous analysis: