Rick Santorum fails to recognize a quote — about "radical feminists" — from his own book.

Pushed, he says his wife wrote that part!

Oh, lord. He's taken to task over a passage in his 2005 book "It Takes a Family." And it's the passage that Jennifer Rubin brought up a couple days ago in her column in The Washington Post. Remember? We talked about it here.

How lame is it not to know what's in your own book... especially something that was just spotlighted in WaPo? And then to say my wife did it? Weak!

ADDED: Below is the colloquy in the transcript. Strangely, it doesn't seem to have the part where he attributes the writing to his wife. It's not in that passage, which seems to be the relevant passage, and I've run a search of the whole document for "wife" and "Karen" and found nothing. I'm now questioning the story at the link above, which is by Brian Knowlton in The New York Times. [UPDATE: More material has been added to the transcript, supporting Knowlton's article, and I'm expanding the material below, accordingly. I'll put the newly added material in italics so you can see what was missing.]

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've raised a lot of eyebrows with some of your comments about women, those comments the other day about women in combat, where you suggested that shouldn't happen because of the types of emotions involved. I know you were talking about the emotions of men who are -- who are alongside the women, but also in your book, "It Takes a Family," where you seem to suggest that a lot of women feel pressure to work outside the home because of radical feminism.

And what do you say to those who worry -- believe that those kind of comments are going to alienate women, make you an easier candidate to beat in a general election?

SANTORUM: Well, that section of the book was co-written, if you want to be honest about it, by my wife, who is a nurse and a lawyer. And when she gave up that practice and she gave up, you know, nursing to raise a family, I mean, she felt very much that society was sort of -- in many cases, looked down their nose at that decision. And all I've said is -- and in talking with my wife and others like her -- who've given up their careers that they should be affirmed in their decision like everybody else and that these are choices, and they're tough choices.

You know, I grew up in a home where my mom and dad both worked. This was back in the '50s and '60s, and -- which was very unusual. My mom actually made more money than my dad. So I grew up in a home where that was something that -- that was a given, women in the workplace, and something that I obviously accepted.

But I think it's important that women both outside the home and inside the home are affirmed for their choices they make, that they are, in fact, choices, and society, you know, treats them in a sense equally for whatever decision they make that's best for them.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say that now, but you also wrote in the book that radical feminists have been making the pitch that justice demands that men and women be given an equal opportunity to make it to the top in the workplace. Isn't that something that everyone should value?

SANTORUM: Yeah, I have no problem -- I don't know -- that's a new quote for me. I don't know what context that was given. But the bottom line is that people should have equal opportunity to rise in the workforce. And, again, if you read the entire section, I don't think anyone will have a problem with the fact that what I was calling for -- very clearly calling for is the treatment of an affirmation of whatever decision women decide to make.