There are times you go for the jugular on people and there are other times when you have to be compassionate to folks. I'm not a fan of the political candidates on the Republican side, but I heard something on local radio that made me sick to my stomach and left me disappointed in a local radio host.

Today Rick Santorum dropped out of the Republican race. There was obviously a lot of action going on with his decision, as his leaving pretty much assures Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. The local liberal talk show host started off his radio show talking about Santorum leaving the race.

I have to say before I go on that I have slowly lost respect for the local liberal talk show host. His radio show consistently shows a lack of preparation in its presentation. There have been times when he will not have enough information on the topics he talks about. In a few cases, I have heard where he seems surprised about some news that had been talked about by the three national hosts that proceed his show days earlier.

So when Santorum dropped out of the race earlier today, the host talks to his board operator and they say they are going to play Santorum's speech. They make the usual fun about Santorum and just as they start to settle in and play the speech, the board operator and the host suggest maybe Santorum is getting out of the race because he may announce he is gay. It was done in jest but they continued to talk about all sorts of speculation as to why h would drop out of the race.

Some of what they had to say might have been legitimate, but this is the point where knowledge of the news you are covering might have changed what you accused him of. Rick Santorum has a young daughter with a genetic condition. Early in the primary season his daughter went to the hospital and he had to go off the campaign trail for a few days to take care of her. Just before Easter his daughter was in the hospital again. Now I'm sure there were a lot of practical and typical political reasons why he might drop out of the race, but faced with a possible loss in his home state, pressure from the GOP establishment to get out of the race, then the hospitalization of his daughter, I'm sure when he really thought about it, I'm sure his daughter's health had an underlying reason why he left the race.

The radio host decided it would be funny to focus on the improbably theory that h got out of the race because of some hidden gay thing. The host and the board operator went so far as to bring up past GOP people who have left in disgrace because of homosexuality. The host also felt it was important to bring up Santorum's penchant for bringing sex into the discussion. While I understand wanting to stick it to someone who has been hypocritical on issues, you want to be careful. When they got around to playing his speech and Santorum specifically said it had been a trying weekend because of his daughter being in the hospital, any reasonable person could assume his withdrawal from the race in part was based on his daughter. Even if mentioning his daughter was purely a cold political calculation to garner sympathy, a caring person would back off speculating about his sexuality or harsh juvenile criticism because of his daughter's condition being placed into the talk.

The host didn't do this. The board operator didn't do this. They were like the worst parody of a Republican fantasy of what liberals are like. It turned my stomach so much that the ill prepared radio people couldn't, for at least a day, criticism his laving the race without resorting to a juvenile accusation that he might be gay that I turned off the station and wen to their Facebook page to unlike them. I agree that Santorum was an idiot on a lot of things in the campaign, but when it was obvious that part of his decision to get out of the race was due to his daughter's illness, couldn't some compassion have been used?