Rick Santorum

On Tuesday, following Rick Santorum's call for politicians, like President Obama, to stop relying on Teleprompters for their public remarks, NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer allowed a liberal panel to rip into the Republican candidate for daring to criticize Obama.

Attorney Star Jones contemptuously proclaimed: "Doesn't he have anything else to talk about?...You're running for the presidency of the United States and you're going to whine because he's a better Teleprompter reader than you are? Oh, please." Correspondent Savannah Guthrie chimed in: "It's silly....It's a cheap shot, it's an easy laugh."

As NewsBusters reported, HBO's Bill Maher on Friday disgracefully claimed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum homeschools his children to keep them locked up in his "Christian madrassa" where they won't be exposed to knowledge and reason.

On Fox New's Hannity Monday, the former Pennsylvania Senator struck back at the vulgar comedian saying, "My 12-year-old will out-reason Bill Maher" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Imagine different lines of work for Mitt Romney and other Republicans, Ed Schultz asked his radio show guests and listeners on Friday.

The responses spoke volumes about Schultz, his guests and listeners. (audio clips after page break)

Barbara Walters gave Joy Behar a well-deserved dressing down on ABC's The View Monday.

After the liberal comedian said Sarah Palin "was completely unprepared for the [vice presidential] job as are a lot of the candidates right now that we’re watching in some of those debates,” Walters responded by providing her co-host the legislative and executive experience of the remaining Republicans in the race (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Bill Maher on Friday attacked Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Christians, and anyone that homeschools their children.

In his final New Rule on HBO's Real Time, Maher said, "Rick Santorum homeschools his children because he does not want them eating [from the Tree of Knowledge]. He wants them locked up in the Christian madrassa that is the family living room not out in public where they could be infected by the virus of reason" (video follows with transcript and commentary, vulgarity warning):

Joe Scarborough doesn't just take his Obama-landslide talk to NBC. He also spewed some of it on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS on Monday night. "This past month has been – and I was saying it this morning on the [MSNBC] show – this has been the worst month for the Republican Party since August of 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned, and I mean that."

To which Smiley replied: "Wow, wow, wow, wow." Then Scarborough delighted his NBC overlords by ripping into Rick Santorum:

Having spent the past week mercilessly attacking conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh for his comments concerning Georgetown University law student and women's rights activist Sandra Fluke, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow closed Wednesday's program by discussing at length Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's vulgar "Google problem."

You see, calling a liberal woman a slut is practically a hate-crime, but referring to a conservative man as the disgusting byproduct of anal sex is "genius" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

During live coverage of the Super Tuesday primaries, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell declared that he hopes that Rick Santorum wins the GOP presidential nomination because he wants to see "hard core conservatism crushed" in November. Moments later, Chris Matthews declared his belief that Santorum would result in a "moderate to liberal Democratic party running the country" which he believed "would be good for the country."

O'Donnell began the back and forth with Matthews as he pronounced:

Jan Crawford spotlighted Karen Santorum's "frustrations with the media" on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, adding that it was "understandable. They've been mocked by some for how they grieved the loss of their infant son." Crawford also noted how Mrs. Santorum's "life...has been under a microscope. In nearly every story written about her, it's mentioned she lived with a doctor...[who] performed abortions" [audio available here; video below the jump].

The political correspondent landed the first Big Three network interview with the GOP candidate's wife. At the end of the segment, Crawford stated that "voters tell us...one thing they like about [Rick] Santorum- he mean what he says, and he's real. And in that sense, he and his wife are very much alike." Anchor Gayle King later sang the praises of Karen Santorum: "[She] needs to do more interviews...because you come across really liking her."

Liberal media outlets have proven pathologically incapable of telling the truth about the Obama administration’s birth control mandate, portraying the issue as a war on women. Now, the Washington Post is even using a woman’s military conference to defend the Obama administration’s blatant violation of religious liberty, and to attack its critics.

Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak launched into a vicious tirade against the opponents of Obama’s birth control (and morning-after pill and sterilization, which is conveniently ignored by the media) mandate.

Have we reached a point where a positive story about a political candidate whose views are considered unacceptable by the media elites won't get widely covered even when it's virtually dropped in their laps?

One can't help but suspect that's the case with Rick Santorum. February 13, the Detroit Free Press carried a moving story by Kathleen Gray about how the parents of a Michigan girl with Trisomy 18, the same disease from which his Santorum's daughter Bella suffers, credit the former senator's detailed and determined suggestions in the midst of their daughter's fight with saving her life. Read the whole thing; what follows are selected excerpts, starting with a downplaying headline:

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and religion reporter Laurie Goodstein profiled GOP candidate Rick Santorum for the front of Sunday's New York Times and seemed uncomfortable with the candidate's brand of strong Catholicism: "From 'Nominal Catholic' to Clarion of Faith – In Santorum's Religious Journey, Wife and Family Were Key."

The Times described how Santorum's dinner-table discussion with his future father-in-law led him on his path of strong anti-abortion and Catholic convictions.

In public accounting, there's a concept known as "independence," which has two aspects: independence in fact and independence in appearance. If you are auditing a company, you may in fact be the most independent person in the world, willing to follow the audit trail wherever it leads, but no matter how much you object, if you own stock in the subject company, you won't be allowed to participate in the audit (by extension, the usual rule is that no firm member can ever own stock in a client company).

This brings me to USA Today reporter Jackie Kucincich, who is the daughter of former Cleveland mayor, multi-term Congressman, and two-time presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. She may in fact be the most independent and objective reporter on earth, but given her bloodlines and her father's still-present engagement in politics, from appearances alone she has no business being assigned to cover the presidential campaign of Rick Santorum (there's plenty of other non-conflicting work back in Washington, so I'm not proposing that she not be in the media). No matter what she produces in covering Santorum, it will and should be suspect. It just so happens that her latest write-up would, based on its content, be dubious in any event, as it fits too neatly into the "social values-obsessed conservatives" meme which has been all the rage in the Democratic Party and the establishment press (but I repeat myself). Several excerpted paragraphs demonstrate that obsession (bold is mine):

On Monday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose hinted that Republicans needed to go further in decrying Rush Limbaugh's slam of radical feminist and law student Sandra Fluke. Rose asked Senator John McCain, "Are you satisfied that those Republican officials have gone far enough in condemning these statements?" McCain replied, "Oh, I'll leave that up to pundits like you, Charlie" [audio available here; video below the jump].

The morning newscast also highlighted how "seven companies have pulled commercials from Limbaugh's nationally syndicated show. Online data company Carbonite said the on-air attack crossed the line....Limbaugh had some defenders, but they were drowned out by those protests on the left, and critics on the right."

Appearing as a guest on MSNBC's The Ed Show, MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe - formerly of Newsweek - complained that the economic policies of GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum "are a repeat of the Bush years," and asserted that President Bush had the "worst jobs record of any President in modern times."

After host Ed Schultz asked "how does Romney and Santorum win over" middle class voters in Ohio, an amused Wolffe recommended that the GOP candidates "change their policies." Wolffe:

Washington Post religion columnist Lisa Miller has one child, and she seems quite smug about it. She thanks God “I live in a time and place where I can get up every morning and go to work, and with the money I earn help feed and educate my child.” But in her Saturday column, the slams the Republican candidates for their “smug fecundity,” that they turned their women into retrograde doormats who make babies.

“There’s nothing wrong with big families, of course,” she says fruitlessly before saying there actually is. “But the smug fecundity of the Republican field this primary season has me worried. Their family photos, with members of their respective broods spilling out to the margins, seem to convey a subliminal message that goes far beyond a father’s pride in being able to field his own basketball team. What the Republican front-runners seem to be saying is this: We are like the biblical patriarchs. As conservative religious believers, we take seriously the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply.”

Bill Maher unsurprisingly took some vicious cheap shots at Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on HBO's Real Time Friday.

In his final New Rule segment, Maher said, "If Rick Santorum is your youth minister, you’d ask your parents to switch you to the one who just molests" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On HBO's Real Time Friday, New York magazine's John Heilemann trotted out the same old tired and completely false cliches about the GOP that Americans are going to hear ad nauseum for the next eight months.

"The Republican Party is becoming just truly is becoming a whiter, more blue collar, more populist, less well-educated party" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

"The American Conservative Union just came out" with their latest congressional scorecard and what do you know, retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has "the lowest lifetime conservative record [48.59, just left of center] of any Republican. In Diane Sawyer's book, that makes her the principled voice of reason," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity on last night's "Media Mash" segment on Hannity.

The liberal media, of course, have been using the left-leaning senator's departure from the Senate as a club to rebuke the Republican Party as in danger of losing its appeal to moderates and becoming a far-right political party with limited appeal. Also discussed on the popular media bias segment was how the media are skewing their coverage of Rick Santorum to present him as obsessed with social issues and bordering on foisting a "Christian" brand of "Sharia law." [video follows page break]

MSNBC's Martin Bashir has long been keen on hammering home a message that the GOP in general and candidates like Rick Santorum in particular are anti-woman. So it should come as no surprise that the afternoon host is flabbergasted Republican women in Ohio favor Romney by a double-digit margin.

"We have some shocking numbers from a University of Cincinnati poll. Santorum carrying women voters by almost 20 points. I have to repeat that: 20 points! I mean, can you explain that?" Bashir asked guest Goldie Taylor during today's program. "Why would women rush to support Rick Santorum given what he's said in the last two months?"

John F. Kennedy may be a hallowed name within Democrat circles, but CNN's Soledad O'Brien seemed to argue Wednesday that he is revered among Catholics too, so much so that they won't vote for a candidate who attacks him.

After Tuesday night's Michigan GOP primary, O'Brien tried to get Rick Santorum's press secretary to admit that the candidate lost Catholic voters in the state because he attacked former President John F. Kennedy for saying the church had no role in the policy of the state.  [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Trashing Rick Santorum as an extremist for his social conservatism and faith has become a daily, if not hourly, ritual on MSNBC. On Wednesday’s episode of NewsNation, anchor Tamron Hall took up the torch, furthering the sort of spin one would expect from a partisan Democrat about how Santorum is too far right for the general electorate:

    [H]e's great ad libbing and giving a speech that can connect, but as long as he appears on shows like "Meet The Press" and other programs and he takes on, of all people JFK, and he comes off as this for some people, even Republicans as this frightening character, the reality is, does he look like a general election candidate?  [See video below.  MP3 audio here.]

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "Sometimes [Rick] Santorum sounds like he's creeping up on a Christian version of Sharia law."

In response to this nonsense, the Republican presidential candidate told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt later that day, "This is the intolerance of the Left. If you have religious beliefs that they don’t believe in, then they marginalize you" (video follows with partial transcript):

During Tuesday's live coverage the Republican presidential primaries in Arizona and Michigan, MSNBC's Chris Matthews again talked about President Obama delivering a "thrill" as he asserted that, unlike GOP candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, Obama has both a "brain" and a "heart" when he makes speeches. Matthews: (Video below)

That didn't take very long.

Within five minutes of the start of MSNBC's coverage of the Arizona and Michigan primaries Tuesday evening, Hardball host Chris Matthews falsely claimed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum wants to "outlaw birth control" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Once again, CNN took offense at a Republican attack against President Obama and rushed to the President's defense, even without complete confirmation of the details. Fill-in host Soledad O'Brien dismissed GOP candidate Rick Santorum's attack on Obama as untrue, even though she couldn't even verify his true source of information.

O'Brien aired Santorum's two swipes at Obama on his wanting every American child to attend college to be remade "in his image" and that the majority of those who attend college abandon their "faith commitment." O'Brien insisted these claims "simply aren't true."

Former Newsweek senior editor Howard Fineman on Tuesday slammed Rick Santorum as regressive, sneering, "Well, I think Rick Santorum is posing a more fundamental challenge to the modern world."

Fineman made his mocking comment while talking to Hardball's Chris Matthews. The liberal anchor wondered who liberals should "fear" more, "Romney's elitist attitude towards the economy, where he looks at everything from the top, economically? Or Santorum's, sort of, gut sense that his religion should trump the Constitution if necessary?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]