Month: January 2012

A grumble shared by several readers:

Can you please stop with the vulgar, juvenile puns?  Look, I despise Rick Santorum.  I mean, on Election night 2006, when CNN announced that he had lost his re-election bid, I opened a bottle of champagne.  THAT'S how much I dislike him.  And when Dan Savage came up with that revolting "definition" of his name, I laughed. I figured the guy deserved it. But really, the way you keep playing on that definition in discussing Santorum's campaign is beneath you and your readers.  You're actually making me feel sympathy for him.

Point taken. It can get tedious. But allow us an occasional juvenile giggle, ok?

(Screenshot of last night's caucus results captured from, yes, FoxNews.com.)

Over at National Review, Michael Tanner makes the case:

There is no doubt that Santorum is deeply conservative on social issues. He is ardently anti-abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and no one takes a stronger stand against gay rights. In fact, with his comparison of gay sex to "man on dog" relationships, Santorum seldom even makes a pretense of tolerance. While that sort of rhetoric may play well in Iowa pulpits, it will be far less well received elsewhere in the nation.

At the same time, on economic and size-of-government issues, Santorum’s record is much weaker. In fact, Eric Erickson of Red State refers to Santorum as a "pro-life statist."

Friedersdorf reviews Rick's record in office:

[C]onsider Santorum, who has no executive experience, served two terms in the House and one term in the Senate, and then lost his bid for reelection by 18 points. His unpopularity was due partly to the fact that he manages to articulate his positions in the most alienating, unlikable terms imaginable. More than even Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry, a Santorum candidacy would rally Democrats and independents back around the president who has disappointed them. Santorum's position on contraception is so extreme that it'd likely cost him even if only Catholics showed up to vote for the general election. And his foreign-policy views would arguably do more to empower the neo-con wing of the Republican Party than did George W. Bush.

Larison calls Santorum the opposite of Paul:

Santorum’s politics are nearly the essence of Bushism. Paul represents the full-throated rejection of the same. If Paul is well-known for his strong anti-war views and sharp criticisms of U.S. interference abroad, Santorum has been no less outspoken in favor of ever more intrusive and interventionist policies. While Paul has been the lone voice warning against a rush to war against Iran, Santorum demands a more combative Iran policy. Santorum’s campaign rhetoric reads as if it were a caricature of neoconservatism. He believes that the U.S. is at war with “Islamic fascism,” which he sees a global threat on par with 20th century totalitarianism. He insists that we must promote democracy, but we must never allow democratic elections to empower Islamists. Oh, and terrorists hate us because we are free. U.S. policies have nothing to do with it.

A closer look at Santorum's insane foreign policy here. Igor Volsky rounds up his craziest comments from the campaign trail.

Larison defends Paul against Kevin Drum's critique:

As it happens, it’s true that “non-interventionism has no other significant voices except Ron Paul” in the current presidential election, and probably the only other nationally-known Republican figure who would be able to match him is his son. The amusing conceit in all of this is that Paul has been or will be bad for non-interventionism. Far fewer people paid any attention to these ideas just five years ago. Non-interventionism has gone from being a more or less marginal position to one that is starting to receive a lot more attention and at least a little serious consideration. It’s impossible to ignore that this wouldn’t have happened had it not been for Paul’s last two presidential campaigns.

Extreme ultra-Orthodox protesters dress a young Israeli child up in Jerusalem in an attempt to re-create this iconic photo from the Holocaust:

The demonstrators were protesting an effort by secular Israelis to roll back gender segregation on some bus lines and in certain neighborhoods—a dispute that has surged in recent weeks. Politicians from across the spectrum voiced outrage, as did Jewish groups in Israel and abroad, describing the display as an ugly trivialization of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were murdered by Nazis and their sympathizers.

Using the Holocaust to argue for the segregation of women in public? Just a glimpse of the fundamentalist psyche and the liberation from any decency it permits.

"It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning 'private' moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm," - Rick Santorum, writing in 2002 on the rape of young children by Catholic priests, protected by arch-conservative Bernard Law.

(Hat tip: Andrew Stuttaford)

Spencer Ackerman spotlights Santorum's foreign policy views:

Go down the line, as Foreign Policy did in this overview piece. In an October debate, Santorum fudged the difference between a trade war and a shooting war with the Chinese. (“I don’t want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business.”) The West Bank is “legitimately Israeli country,” he said in November, opposing Palestinian statehood.

It’s distinguished Santorum from his rivals. Few of Santorum’s Republican opponents are as hardline on so many foreign-policy issues. Romney even appears to be moving in a more dovish direction on Iran from his last presidential bid. And while the others play down security issues on the trail in favor of economic ones, Santorum’s final Iowa ad, seen above, boasted he had “more foreign policy credentials than any candidate” — and even repackaged a military term to dub him a “full-spectrum conservative.”

Santorum puts neoconservatism on steroids. And as an explicitly religious candidate, he would rightly be seen as a crusader in the Middle East, with all the blowback that entails for US interests and security.

No you couldn't make this up.

Newt may be about to go nuclear on Romney.

Question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com Video archive here.

"[My grandfather] came after having fought in World War I because Mussolini has been in power now for three years and had has figured out that Fascism was something that would crush his spirit and his freedom . And we have two parties that are out talking about how they’re going to solve those problems. One wants to talk about raising taxes on people who have been successful and redistributing money, increasing dependency in this country, promoting more Medicaid and food stamps and all sorts of social welfare programs and passing Obamacare to provide even more government subsidies. More and more dependency, more and more government — exactly what my grandfather left in 1925," – Rick Santorum, last night.

Yep: the man who would ban contraception, launch a war of aggression against Iran, constitutionally define gays as second class citizens, and launch a nationalist industrial strategy … sees his opponent as Mussolini.