Fox News contributor - and probably its most muscular liberal - Alan Colmes got into some political hot water Monday (1/2/12) over his comments on Happening Now about the surging presidential candidacy of Rick Santorum. Colmes was trying to make the argument that Santorum's popularity would likely wither under the ensuing media scrutiny. “Once (voters) get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two hour-old baby, who died right after childbirth, home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real,” Colmes said.  The other guest, conservative Rich Lowry, became outraged at the “cheap shot” and the debate remained heated throughout the rest of the eight-minute segment.

Colmes probably did not choose the best instance of Santorum craziness to highlight given that it involved a family grieving over a dead child. But considering the kinds of attacks against Democrats that are the usual fare on Fox News, it’s hard for me to feel that Colmes was too far out of bounds.

Here’s the incident Colmes was talking about as it was written up in the New York Times in 2005:

The childbirth in 1996 was a source of terrible heartbreak -- the couple were told by doctors early in the pregnancy that the baby (wife) Karen was carrying had a fatal defect and would survive only for a short time outside the womb. According to Karen Santorum's book, ''Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum,'' she later developed a life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant. After resisting at first, she allowed doctors to give her the drug Pitocin to speed the birth. Gabriel lived just two hours.

What happened after the death is a kind of snapshot of a cultural divide. Some would find it discomforting, strange, even ghoulish -- others brave and deeply spiritual. Rick and Karen Santorum would not let the morgue take the corpse of their newborn; they slept that night in the hospital with their lifeless baby between them. The next day, they took him home. ''Your siblings could not have been more excited about you!'' Karen writes in the book, which takes the form of letters to Gabriel, mostly while he is in utero. ''Elizabeth and Johnny held you with so much love and tenderness. Elizabeth proudly announced to everyone as she cuddled you, 'This is my baby brother, Gabriel; he is an angel.' ''

Lowry, ordinarily one of the milder-mannered of the Fox News stable of conservative pundits, perfectly exemplified that cultural divide. He repeatedly interrupted and lambasted Colmes – who refused to be silenced. Unfortunately, with all the fireworks, Colmes’ larger point - that Santorum is “so far outside the mainstream that he is not, he can’t be taken seriously as a candidate” – got a bit lost.

Several hours later, after a tearful response from Karen Santorum, Colmes tweeted that he had apologized to the family for his “hurtful comment” and that his apology had been “graciously accepted." The matter was later discussed briefly on Hannity where Santorum reiterated his acceptance of the apology.

Colmes did the right thing by apologizing. But the wrath he’s facing over at Fox Nation – where the Colmes/Lowry debate is currently the top story – is more than a little hypocritical. After all, this is the same group of chatters who regularly discuss murdering liberals and Democrats.

And let’s not forget what sort of things are said on the air on Fox about Democrats:

“Most blacks, not all but most in Tennessee, especially in the Memphis, Tennessee area, are still living in the 50’s and 60’s. They are so racist that they don’t even realize that white Americans have moved on. And so whenever there’s a campaign like this, such as this, they always use racism in order to intimidate white America.” (8/6/08)

“I think we all agree that Barack Obama was elected by, mostly by black racists and white guilty people. Most black Americans, 96 percent of them, are racists who (unintelligible) white Americans.” (2/3/09)

If you think about liabilities for President Obama that are close to him, Joe Biden is up there. But Michelle Obama's right there. Michelle Obama, you know she's got the Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going. (1/26/09)

Is there anything that (Obama) likes about this country? (8/24/11)

“It’s clear that the Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry wing of the Democratic Party has a visceral loathing for the American military and for, frankly, America as a country in the world… I think it tells you how deep the sickness is in the left wing of the Democratic Party.” (11/1/06)

Every one of the people who spoke those remarks is a regular on Fox News.

So you’ll have to forgive me for not feeling too concerned about the suddenly tender feelings of the Fox News community.