Rick Santorum’s temper got the better of him yesterday when asked by reporters to clarify some earlier comments on Mitt Romney.

During a speech in Wisconsin, the conservative presidential hopeful said, “Pick any other Republican in the country, he is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.” This is the same argument he’s been making all week, as when he said, referring to Romney and Obama, “If they’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future.” Santorum claimed last week that remark was with regard to Romney’s past health care policies, but as in the Wisconsin speech, he wasn’t specific, leading many reporters yesterday to ask precisely what he meant when he said Romney is “the worst Republican” to take on Obama.

Losing his cool, Santorum claims it was obvious he was talking about health care and accused the media of “distorting” his words. Actually, he went a bit further than that. Here’s what Santorum had to say to the New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny: “Quit distorting my words. It’s bullshit.”

Santorum has a reputation for getting flustered when he doesn’t like a journalist’s questions. While he usually just cries “gotcha,” now he’s calling “bullshit,” thus giving rival Romney’s team plenty of ammunition to paint him as an immature sore loser: they’ve already started using the Twitter hashtag #Tantorum, and are enthusiastically attacking their chief competition.

Eric Fehrnstrom, the Romney aide who launched the Etch A Sketch revival last week, tweeted, “When you’d rather have Obama than a Republican #tantorum.” Romney spokesman Ryan William meanwhile offered his own social media missives: “Desperate, angry, flailing candidate going off the rails #unglued #unhinged” and “Santorum losing composure, lashing out w/ desperate attacks. Sign of a panicked candidate who realizes that the walls are closing in on him.”

Well, Rick, you stepped right into that one.

UPDATE: Ooooo, here’s video of an extremely angry Santorum saying “bullshit.”