As NewsBusters previously reported, Friday's "Real Time" on HBO contained some of the most vile political talk ever broadcast on national television.

In one panel segment, gay sex advice columnist Dan Savage said of Republicans, "I wish they were all f--king dead" (video follows with transcript and commentary, extreme vulgarity warning):

A defense of infidelity, put forward by gay-rights activist and explicit sex-advice columnist Dan Savage and penned by Mark Oppenheimer, “Married, With Infidelities,” served as the cover of the latest New York Times Sunday Magazine. The subhead to the banner headline in the print edition described Savage as a “devoted husband, proud father, sex columnist.” Left off the resume: Doorknob licker and conservative presidential campaign saboteur.

Savage believes monogamy is right for many couples. But he believes that our discourse about it, and about sexuality more generally, is dishonest. Some people need more than one partner, he writes….Savage says a more flexible attitude within marriage may be just what the straight community needs. Treating monogamy, rather than honesty or joy or humor, as the main indicator of a successful marriage gives people unrealistic expectations of themselves and their partners. And that, Savage says, destroys more families than it saves.

Nightline's Yunji de Nies on Thursday offered a laudatory segment on the sex columnist Dan Savage. She has previouisly fawned on Twitter that the writer/activist was "hilarious." De Nies offered almost no mention of the outrageous statements Savage has made, including referring to Antonin Scalia as a "c–ksucker" and once asserting, "F–k John McCain."

The only hint about the radical nature of Savage came when de Nies explained, "Savage doesn't hide his politics. He famously went after Republican Rick Santorum after the former senator compared homosexuality to bestiality. Savage responded by calling on his fan base to redefine the word Santorum online."

Instead of pressing the syndicated gay columnist about his remarks, she blandly wondered, "Have you had a chance to talk to [Santorum] personally?...Do you have any interest in engaging with him on this?"

If someone associated your last name with fecal matter, you probably wouldn't think it should be characterized as "an oldie but a goodie." That's just what CNN anchor Don Lemon said on Saturday night after Sen. Rick Santorum talked to the newspaper Roll Call about his "Google problem." Vile gay sex columnist Dan Savage -- a man CNN has presented as an "anti-bullying" hero -- has insured that anyone who Google searches for "Santorum" gets his name defined by fecal matter.

“It’s one guy. You know who it is. The Internet allows for this type of vulgarity to circulate. It’s unfortunate that we have someone who obviously has some issues. But he has an opportunity to speak,” Santorum told Roll Call. 

CNN's Don Lemon was speaking to Maureen O'Connor of the gossipy left-wing site Gawker (the same person who recently exposed the looking-for-adultery problem of GOP Rep. Christopher Lee of New York):

On Thursday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, host Keith Olbermann tried to link John McCain and other opponents of allowing gays to serve openly in the military to anti-gay extremists like the American Family Associations Bryan Fischer, who has claimed that Adolf Hitler and other Nazis were homosexuals. Olbermann: "Why is this former presidential candidate siding with opponents of repealing Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell who now claim it could lead to an all-gay army, an all-gay army like the kind they claimed Hitler had? ... John McCain is marshaling his own resistance to the Senate amendment, inexplicably siding be with right-wing fringe groups who are attempting to out-homophobe each other to prevent historic progress for gay Americans."

But Olbermann also tried to lump more mainstream conservative groups like the Family Research Council in with extremists, and seemed to agree with guest and columnist Dan Savage when he claimed that "Hitler treated gay people the way these right-wing bigots would like to treat gay people":