Paul Harris weighs in at The Guardian:

Santorum’s team have also denied that he intended to say “nigger” in Wisconsin. In this case, I am much more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. The video is odd: his exact meaning, and even the nature of his stumble, is unclear. For a candidate who frequently makes a great play of the fact that, unlike President Obama, he does not use a teleprompter for his stump speeches, his slips-of-the-tongue are becoming a liability that should make him think twice about extemporizing.

Hmm. While we can’t know what Santorum meant to say, giving him “the benefit of the doubt” is a little generous. Anyway, Harris continues:

But giving Santorum a pass in this instance masks a larger point. The GOP nomination race has seen Barack Obama consistently painted as a radical, a danger to the American way of life and someone out to fundamentally transform the country. And that is just by the candidates. Among the audiences at Republican rallies, the overheated rhetoric and demonisation have been more lurid still.

That’s true. Just look at this video (which a I posted awhile back), where Santorum’s team portrays Obama as a Muslim radical. It’s wrong, insane and bigoted all at once.

I have no idea if Rick Santorum just barely braked before saying something fatally racist or if it was just a talking malfunction (they happen). But I do know theĀ best case scenario is that while Rick “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” Santorum might not be a total n-word spouting racist, his political and economic ideas lead to racist results.

Combined with his past homophobic, gynophobic and Islamophobic statements, he clearly is a bigot. N-word or no.