James Poulos calls Santorum "Zombie Bush," and blames his sudden rise on the candidates' "awkward conspiracy of silence surrounding the Bush years." Larison reminds us that Santorum was one of two senators to vote against Bob Gates' confirmation after Rumsfeld resigned in 2006:
He was intensifying his hawkishness at the same time that even the Bush administration was beginning to pull back from some of the ideological enthusiasms and mistakes of its first five years. Santorum’s foreign policy might actually be more aggressive than that of Bush’s first term … Romney represents a return to Bush-era policies, and that’s bad enough, but Santorum would represent a full-blown revival of the worst elements of the Bush administration’s policies and mentality during its early years.
David Boaz has more.
The Dish 