It's Much Worse Than You Think

I realize that the November elections are less than 2 weeks away. However, maybe a reconsideration of Rick Santorum is in order. I know that I didn't understand all that was at stake in his re-election.

I thought it was merely a matter of letting Rick be Rick. A resident of Virginia who works for the K street lobbyists. I really believed that by removing him from office, we were just eliminating the middleman. That is, he wouldn't have to pretend to live in Pittsburgh or be a member of Congress. He could accept his full paycheck from the corporate interests and reside in his manse on the hill in Leesburg, Virginia.

Then I read an article describing what's really involved in this election. In Santorum issues GOP call to arms, the Lebanon Daily News puts it all in stark perspective:

Likening the times to the late 1930s as Nazi Germany was rising to power, Sen. Rick Santorum said last night that if he loses his re-election bid, it could set the stage for terrorism to become more of a threat than the Nazis ever were.

“If we are not successful here and things don’t go right in the election, there’s a good chance that the course of our country could change,” he said. “We are in the equivalent of the late 1930s, and this election will decide whether we are going to continue to appease or whether we will stand and fight while we have a chance to win without devastating consequences.

“And you here in Pennsylvania — you here in this room — will have a huge role to play as to what happens.”

Santorum, Pennsylvania’s junior senator who is seeking re-election to a third term, focused mainly on terrorism during his speech at the Lebanon County Republican Committee’s annual dinner at the Lantern Lodge.

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The United States declared war on the Nazis in Germany and imperialists in Japan during World War II, he explained, and this is no different.

“I’m sure that offended a lot of Germans when we went out and declared war against the Nazis and fought that concept, as it did the Japanese in America. When we fought Japanese imperialism it offended a lot of Japanese,” he said. “But it didn’t deter us from identifying the enemy, what they’re about and what they want to accomplish. But because we’re dealing with religion, we cower away. We refuse to stand up and pinpoint the enemy, define it so the people of America will have a better understanding of what we’re up against.”

The threat the United States is up against now is the greatest threat it has ever faced, Santorum said. Unlike every other threat, terrorists don’t care if they establish an earthly kingdom.

“They’d be fine if you all submit to Islam, but they don’t anticipate that,” he said. “They anticipate a world war, a conflagration that the world has never seen. ... They don’t mind that because they are willing to die. In fact, they want to die. Their whole intention is to die for their cause because it will ensure them eternal life in the world they care about.”

Good lord, who knew?? So just remember when you go into that voting booth on November 7th. If Rick Santorum loses -- it's the end of the world as we know it. And it's all your fault.


(Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson of Philadelphia Daily News)

UPDATE: John Baer of the Philadelphia Daily News also remarks on this topic in Santorum leans on doomsday rhetoric. As he says:

Santorum is fierce. I long thought he'd find a way to win this race. But not anymore. I just don't see this stuff working.

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What's puzzling is it comes at a time when voters are war-weary, and most Republicans try to avoid discussion of the war, since it's key to election outcomes and working against those associated with it.

It also comes at the close of an election in which Santorum's vulnerability is national and international issues and his asset is Pennsylvania and how his high-ranking incumbency helps the state.

Yet we get this full-metal bellicosity.

It's a strategy disconnected from the realities of the race, almost as if he's preaching to a different constituency for a different office.

I have no doubt he believes what he says. Just as he believes homosexuality's akin to bestiality, Boston's liberalism caused pedophilia in the Catholic Church, Terry Schiavo was "executed," public education is "weird socialization," mothers of means shouldn't work outside the home, and the mainstream media lie about him.

There's a gathering storm all right. It's the one he brought upon himself.

Tags: Political Satire, PA Politics, Rick Santorum