Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Rush Limbaugh "absurd" on Friday for the his controversial comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, an advocate for contraception coverage, earlier this week.
"He's being absurd, but that's you know, an entertainer can be absurd," Santorum told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room." "He's in a very different business than I am."
Santorum stopped short of actually denouncing Limbaugh, who called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for asking that employers and schools include contraception coverage in their health plans. Instead, Santorum criticized the president for his birth control policy.
"I'm concerned about the public policy of this president imposing his values on people, people of faith who morally object to the government telling them they have to do something, which they believe is a grave moral wrong," Santorum said in the interview.
According to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney walked right past CNN's cameras when they tried to get him to comment on the Limbaugh controversy.
Republicans in Congress haven't said much in response to Limbaugh's remarks either. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and more than 75 other Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday expressing their outrage and demanding that Republican leadership publicly rebuke Limbaugh. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee circulated a petition to that effect.
"Demand that Rush Limbaugh apologize for these incredibly appalling and ignorant remarks," the petition says. "Misogyny must be called out, especially when it comes from a mouthpiece of the Republican Party."
In response, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said simply, "The Speaker obviously believes the use of those words was inappropriate, as is trying to raise money off the situation."
UPDATE: 5:40 p.m. -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) joined the small group of Republicans who have responded to Limbaugh, tweeting, "Rush Limbaugh's comments are reprehensible. He should apologize."