Did Rick Santorum Really Use 'Race Card' in Critiquing Obama's Abortion Stance?

Liberals and many in the media are criticizing former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, R-Penn., for playing the "race card" during comments he made analyzing President Barack Obama's stance on abortion.

Santorum told CNSNews Thursday that he found it "almost remarkable" that a black man like Obama would want to deny legal recognition for the human rights of an unborn child. Santorum's comments came just after he noted his agreement with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who argued in his 1963 letter from Birmingham Jail that "a just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God..."

CNSNews also notes that Santorum's comments stemmed from a one-hour and forty-minute interview in the context of "a discussion about the advocacy of natural law by the first-century-B.C. Roman senator Cicero, the Founding Fathers' belief in a God-given natural law--which Santorum said he shared--and the natural law's application to contemporary policy issues." Santorum used America's past laws that allowed slavery as an example of an immoral policy that violated the natural law and needed to be changed.

Nevertheless, the Huffington Post dubbed Santorum's comments a "racially-charged attack" on Obama.

"The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the constitution?" he said. "And Barack Obama says no. Well if that human life is not a person then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say 'now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"

HuffPo characterized Santorum's comments as "clumsy" and mischaracterized his sentiment, claiming he "seemed to suggest that it was objectionable for Obama to be pro-choice because he was black."

Santorum's comments also raised the eyebrows of anchors at ABC News who wondered what effect Santorum's "interesting" comments would have on his chances as a potential 2012 GOP nominee for president.

Other media outlets, including Politico, National Journal and the Daily Beast, also accused Santorum of playing the "race card."

By Thursday evening, the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell released a statement publicly defending Santorum's comments and accusing the media of working to undermine conservative thought:

This has nothing to do with a supposed "race card." This isn’t even just about Rick Santorum. The media whirlwind whipped up on these accusations are nothing more than the continuation of an ugly and dishonest attempt to distort, delegitimize and damn conservative principles and conservative leaders.

Anyone who actually watched this interview can see that Santorum paralleled what many pro-life leaders have compared in the past. Just ask Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Day Gardner, Rev. Childress or any number of other black leaders who have also called abortion the civil rights issue of our day.

It’s sad that many of these same outlets also failed to report news yesterday of the Philadelphia abortionist charged with the murder of 1 woman and 7 babies born alive and then killed with scissors. It doesn't get more gruesome than that. But that story doesn’t threaten liberal ideology, so I guess it’s just not news.

Santorum does threaten liberal ideology, so they create a false controversy -- and call it news.