The story of Rick Santorum's premature baby, who sadly died only a few hours after birth, is tragic. One can only imagine that sort of grief. What's disgusting and infuriating, though, is what his political enemies are saying about how Mr. Santorum and his family expressed their grief. First Alan Colmes:

In a discussion with National Review’s Rich Lowry about the political rise of Rick Santorum, Colmes refers to some of the “crazy things [Santorum has] 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 is real.”

Then Eugene Robinson:

"He's not a little weird, he's really weird," Robinson said of Santorum. "And some of his positions that he has taken are just so weird that I think that some Republicans are off-put. Not everybody is not going to be down, for example, with the story of how he and his wife handled the stillborn child. It was a body that they took home to kind of sleep with it, introduce it to the rest of the family. It's a very weird story."

This nonsense is all about abortion, folks. Even though the Santorums didn't have an abortion, the "pro-choice" crowd has become so invested in defending abortion rights by not recognizing an unborn child as a human being that they find it politically necessary to mock those that do. Even though this baby was actually born and managed to live for 2 hours, the Santorums are derided for grieving and treating it with dignity. Patterico is rightfully disgusted:

What Robinson has done, and what Colmes did the other day, is indecent. These men would never say such a thing to Santorum’s face. (Or maybe they would — which is possibly even worse.) What sickness has invaded our body politic that people feel free, not only to act the cretin, but to do so on national television while sporting insufferable, supercilious, self-satisfied smirks like those we have seen on the mugs of Colmes and Robinson in recent days?

In short: how dare they? How dare they?!

There is something wrong with a system that expects people to undergo such indignities to attain high office. I’m not a fan of Rick Santorum as a candidate, but the treatment he has received in recent days regarding an intensely personal decision is a disgrace.

Peter Wehner is similarly incensed, and makes the abortion connection as well, though from a different angle:

Robinson seems completely comfortable lampooning a man and his wife who had experienced the worst possible nightmare for parents: the death of their child. It is one thing to say you would act differently if you were in the situation faced by Rick and Karen Santorum ; it’s quite another to deride them as “crazy” and “very weird,” which is what commentators on the left are increasingly doing, and with particular delight and glee.

We are seeing how ideology and partisan politics can so disfigure people’s minds and hearts that they become vicious in their assaults on those with whom they have political disagreements. [...]

(I)t tells you something about the culture in which we live that in some quarters those who routinely champion abortion, even partial-birth abortion, are viewed as enlightened and morally sophisticated while those grieving the loss of their son, whom they took home for a night before burying, are mercilessly mocked.