Larry O'Donnell Hates Santorum: Says He's Mentally Ill, and Gay Fred Karger More Qualified for Iowa Debate

August 14th, 2011 11:28 PM

How badly do liberals hate Rick Santorum? Last Tuesday, Lawrence O'Donnell insisted an openly-gay fringe candidate was more worthy of inclusion in the Iowa presidential debate than Santorum was, employing a poll by liberal Harris Interactive.  O'Donnell claimed Santorum "has left many of us concerrned for his mental health" at his opposition to gay marriage. Forgive us if we don't buy that O'Donnell's heart bleeds with concern for Santorum's allegedly fragile state.

In addition, coarse liberal radio host Randi Rhodes mocked Santorum and his wife Karen and their home schooling of their children. She asserted "Children who are raised by wolves are better off  than kids homeschooled by Rick Santorum!"

Somehow, it's doubtful if a Democrat ran for president against his party's grain on a single uncomfortable social issue -- let's say it was a champion of the unborn -- that O'Donnell would be thumping a tub for their inclusion in debates. But that wasn't slowing Larry down:

O'DONNELL: Time for tonight`s Rewrite. Fox News is barring this man from its Republican presidential debate this week simply because he is gay. Fred Karger meets all of Fox`s requirements for being in the debate, which are "the candidate be registered with the Federal Elections Commission as a presidential exploratory committee or presidential campaign. The candidate meets all U.S. Constitutional requirements and has garnered at least an average of one percent in five national polls based on most recent polling leading up to the registration day."

Karger's campaign cites five polls, the most recent a Harris interactive poll, which saw the candidate tied with Tim Pawlenty at two percent. Karger has also placed at one percent in three polls, one of them a Fox News poll. And just under one percent in a fifth. And to reiterate, "Fox`s own rules call for an average of one percent in five national polls, and the two percent showing in the most recent Harris Poll gets him there."

But Fox News knows that Fred Karger is openly gay. And Fox News is not about to let an openly gay presidential candidate in a Republican debate. But Fox News will allow this man in the debate, former Fox News contributor Rick Santorum, who polls 50 percent lower than Fred Karger in the Harris Interactive Poll.

Santorum, of course, is not openly gay. But he is deeply confused about human sexuality and has left many of us concerned for his mental health when he finds himself irresistibly drawn, at no one's prompting, into discussions of gay life.

This is one of those classic double standards that liberals like to engage in -- because Fred Karger is running for president to discuss his gay life, and all the other issues are secondary. Somehow, O'Donnell doesn't think Karger has a mental-health problem. But a politician willing to question gay marriage must by definition have a screw loose.

O'Donnell went on a long bender about Santorum attempting to suggest the difference between traditional marriage and "gay marriage" is like the difference between a napkin and a paper towel. It's not a terrific analogy, since it allowed O'Donnell to claim he's not a fancy-pants who wears $88 socks and $525 shoes because he uses paper towels like a napkin. Then he harrumphed: "Someone who has no comprehension of the American relationship to paper towels and napkins has no better chance of becoming president than an openly gay Republican."

On August 5, Randi Rhodes went on this anti-Santorum bender:

RHODES:  Frankly, when I look at, you know, seven children of Rick Santorum all being homeschooled - there are seven people that are being raised to be ignorant enough to vote for someone like Rick Santorum and that kills me!

CALLER: Absolutely, absolutely absolutely!

RHODES: I mean, you'd be better off living in a pit in somebody's basement lowering down bottles of skin lotion - it rubs the lotion on - you know what I mean than - than you would being homeschooled by Mrs. Santorum, who passes a dead fetus around as a learning lesson!

CALLER: Absolutely -- I'm a visual --

RHODES: Children who are raised by wolves are better off  than kids homeschooled by Rick Santorum!

Liberals are forever bashing the Santorums for taking their dead baby son Gabriel home for their other children to see. It would be much less weird and much more defensible for them if a candidate secured a late-term abortion and never thought about it again.