This past month, Rep. Maxine Waters told the crowd at a California town hall meeting that the Tea Party could “go straight to hell,” the kind of silly hyperbole that, in the world of politics and with an election coming up, pretty much translates to, “Hey, everybody! Please gather round and denounce me for quick political points!” First up to the Waters piñata is Sen. Rick Santorum, who called Waters “vile” during an interview with WOR Radio’s Steve Malzberg.

It was bound to happen sometime– Rick Santorum has been sex columnist Dan Savage‘s favorite punching bag for some time now, launching a Google campaign to turn his name into a gay sex euphemism and fantasizing aloud about having sex with him. Santorum took most of it in stride, or at least silence, but it appears Savage’s appearance on Real Time last Friday was the last straw. This week, Santorum sent out a fundraising email condemning “hate activist” Savage and went on a long tirade against him on The Steve Malzberg Show.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently declared torture is something that Republican Senator John McCain “doesn’t understand.” Some are demanding an apology from Santorum for such a statement, yet yesterday during a radio interview, Santorum attempted to scale back his critique of McCain and instead focus on defending the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Presumptive presidential hopeful and Fox News weekend anchor Mike Huckabee sat down today with conservative radio host Steve Malzberg today to talk about, among other things, where President Barack Obama was born and raised. Somewhat surprisingly, Huckabee came pretty close to revealing himself as a “birther”, or in other words, a conspiracy theorist who believes that Obama is ineligible for the Presidency of the United States because he was not born in the United States. Update – Huckabee didn’t mean it!

The political rhetoric debate that has arisen in light of the likely schizophrenia-induced Arizona massacre this weekend has led to a whole lot of line-drawing on what media personalities can and cannot say. That doesn’t mean that some haven’t been immediately– and egregiously– crossing them. Take Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill, who called for rhetoric to be toned down nearly in the same breath as calling Barack Obama a “murderer.”

On CNN‘s Reliable Sources, Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar and conservative radio host Steve Malzberg debated whether excited rhetoric from politicians and media personalities helped to contribute to a climate where the Arizona shooting could take place. Malzberg was quick to point out that aggressive language is used by both sides of the political spectrum while Sklar was in favor of everyone no longer using violent imagery.

In a radio interview for The Steve Malzberg Show, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) continued the political haymaking that has attended the latest Wikileaks document dump. King told Malzberg that President Obama isn’t as upset “as he should be” over the leak. He makes this leap by comparing Assange to Daniel Ellsberg, and asserting that Obama’s “political upbringing” makes it “difficult to take action against someone who is the logical descendent” of Ellsberg.

During a radio interview yesterday, liberal analyst Marc Lamont Hill said he learned he had been fired by Fox News last Friday through a Google Alert.

Think Progress has the audio and transcript of his interview with radio host Steve Malzberg – and it raises more questions about the reason the rising star at FNC was let go.