The blogosphere erupted after the Drudge Report pointed to remarks Santorum had made in 2008.

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America,” Santorum said in a speech at Ave Maria University in Florida. “This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country — the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?”

Some writers rushed to defend Santorum on the basis that he was being painted as an extremist for merely being a social conservative.

“The media has unleashed the hounds on Rick Santorum,” wrote Rich Lowry at the National Review Online. “Santorum is a standing affront to the sensibilities and assumptions of the media and political elite. That elite is constantly writing the obituary for social conservatism, which is supposed to wither away and leave a polite, undisturbed consensus in favor of social liberalism.”

“The mainstream media, with — sadly — the help of the anti-Santorum Matt Drudge, is waging a full-scale assault on Rick Santorum’s social and religious views (which often go together) in an effort to derail his campaign on the implied basis that Santorum is a fringe freako lunatic who would turn America into a theocracy immediately upon being elected President,” wrote Sister Toldjah. “It’s important to remember that President Barack Obama used his Christian faith, in part, as a strong basis for some of the policies he’s advocated.”

But many other conservatives, who are not so keen on Santorum, were quick to point out that comments like that would jeopardize the GOP’s chances at the White House if the former Pennsylvania senator was the Republican Party’s nominee.

“Santorum’s attack on Satan is an ill-advised, horribly misguided attempt to play on his religiosity yet again — and yet again, he has painted himself into the ‘religious nut’ corner. The vast majority of Americans are religious and believe in the evil of Satan, but they also find such talk alienating when its speaker is now a candidate in a mainstream political campaign,” wrote Ben Shapiro at Big Government.

“Defining freedom as ‘the freedom to pursue God’s will’ certainly would make for an interesting campaign plank; Democrats would tread lightly in attacking it, but then, if even some on the right think Santorum railing against Satanic ‘sensuality’ is kooky, they can afford to,” adds AllahPundit at HotAir.

“Rick Santorum is a good man, but that doesn’t mean he’d be a good candidate, much less a good president,” wrote Tristan Abbey at Richochet.

“Not that I entirely disagree with the premise that we have a problem with our culture. But I just don’t know how this will fly with the average voter,” concurred blogger LonelyConservative.

Meanwhile, some liberals characterize the Republican primary base as aligned with Santorum’s views.

“[Writer Ed Kilgore] notes that the wingerati is attacking Rick Santorum as too far right. Good luck making that charge work in a Republican primary,” quips Doug Jarvus Green-Ellis at the progressive Balloon Juice blog. “My feeling is you can’t be too young, too thin, or too right-wing in a Republican primary. Santo ought to amp it up, if anything.”

Another blogger suggested that the emerging social issues in the 2012 presidential campaign were the result of fatigue over Republican economic ideas.

“The Santorum campaign is what happens when the old zombie ideas — cut taxes; deregulate — are so worn out even the candidates are bored with them,” wrote a blogger at Mahablog in a post titled “Hitting Bottom.”