During an appearance on Fox News, Sarah Palin weighed in on a suggestion made by Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum in 2008 that "Satan has his sights on the United States of America."
"They will attack any conservatives who boldly proclaims their faith and talks about there is good in the world and there's evil in the world and that's what Rick Santorum was talking about," explained Palin. "And this was a speech that he gave back in 2008, where he named evil as Satan. And for these lame-stream media characters to get all wee-weed up about that, first you have to ask yourself, 'Have they ever attended a Sunday school class even? Have they never heard of this terminology before?" And that's why they got so, you know, just whacked out about the speech."
The former Alaska governor continued, "I gave a speech back in 2008 where I asked college and high school students if they would pray for our troops and pray for our efforts overseas in war zones and they ran that tape over and over again in the vice presidential race trying to make me sound like a whacko talking about good and evil in our world."
The Drudge Report resurfaced what Santorum had to say four years ago on Tuesday. ABC News relays the remarks in question:
"While we all see all this as a great political conflict in warfare between the Obama camp and the McCain camp and culture wars, what Bishop Aquila put his finger on and what I think, I suspect those of you who are here understand, this is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war," Santorum said in August of 2008.
"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. There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost 200 years, once America’s preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers."
Asked about the comments coming back into the spotlight on Tuesday, Santorum said, "Its a joke, its absurd. You know, if a person I‘m a person of faith." He added, "I believe in good and evil. I think if somehow or another because you’re a person of faith you believe in good and evil is a disqualifier for president we’re going to have a very small pool of candidates who can run for president."
The presidential hopeful asserted, "I’ll defend everything I say."