When the Saints Go Marching In

Op-ed columnist David Brooks and his column on PA Senator Santorum, Political Theater and the Real Rick Santorum, was the topic of discussion yesterday with Ladies Who Lunch (along with the post-mortum on Mohonk). Acting as an apologist for Santorum, Brooks said:

Every poll suggests that Rick Santorum will lose his race to return to the U.S. Senate. That’s probably good news in Pennsylvania’s bobo suburbs, where folks regard Santorum as an ideological misfit and a social blight. But it’s certainly bad for poor people around the world.

For there has been at least one constant in Washington over the past 12 years: almost every time a serious piece of antipoverty legislation surfaces in Congress, Rick Santorum is there playing a leadership role.

Not surprisingly, I pooh-poohed the claim that Santorum has dedicated his life (and term in Congress) to the poor. I suggested that it's most likely that his votes were cast when it wouldn't matter (the legislation was going to pass/fail anyway), so he could use stats like these when needed.

The video Tribute to Senator Santorum refutes that claim, particularly with respect to his environmental record. In Even Bono is wrong sometimes: Why Rick Santorum is no saint, Will Bunch of Attytood discusses Sanctimonious Santorum as well:

Rick Santorum is running out of cards to play in his Senate race here in Pennsylvania. In past elections, he was able to throw on a nice cardigan sweater right before Election Day, pose with his photogenic family and say something nice-sounding about dogs or old people, and hope that people from the heavily Democratic Philadelphia area thought he was from Ohio or something.

That's just not working in 2006.

Bunch also mentioned the accolades from Bono and Brooks, with the hope that voters might think "If the U2 lead singer thinks the Pa. senator is a good guy, then maybe we shouldn't toss him out with the Republican dirty bathwater, or so this argument goes."

Turning to the Brooks column, he says:

Wow, with all of that, why are we wasting time on the Senate re-election process? Can't we just skip straight to canonization?

Not so fast.

For one thing, as Brooks kind of quickly fudges, not all of Santorum's big ideas have become law -- pretty impotent for the No. 3 guy in the Senate when his own party controls both houses of Congress and the White House. If voters in Pa. insist on a Republican, maybe they should find one who gets things done.

The truth is that when you look at the big picture, Santorum's GOP revolution in Washington has been ineffective in fighting AIDS, won't train doctors to staff those community health centers, and has frozen money for that Healthy Start program -- just to cite three examples from the Brooks column. In fighting for the poor, we don't have the luxury of separating Santorum from the company he keeps.

But there's more. Charity, after all, begins at the home. And if Rick Santorum's main concern in the world is fighting poverty, as Bono says, he can have a funny way of showing it.

1) If Rick Santorum is all about what he can do for the poor man, why did he found a charity, and then watch the bulk of its money go to wealthy political cronies and related expenses, with only a fraction actually aiding anti-poverty groups?

As we first reported in the American Prospect this winter, the Santorum-chaired Operation Good Neighbor Foundation only paid out 35.9 percent of the first $1 million it raised on actual charity, or less than half of what experts recommend as a minimum; the rest included a healthy salary and rent for Santorum's campaign finance director and a political fundraiser, as well as travel and the like.

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2) If Santorum is such a big supporter of compassion and personal responsibility, why won't he release copies of his income taxes, as opponent Casey has done? There could be lots of reasons why Santorum, who has hemmed and hawed on this issue throughout the campaign, hasn't done this? Could it be that this compassionate conservative, with a six kids and a $500,000 mortgage on his Virginia McMansion while "living from paycheck to paycheck," gives little or nothing to charity?

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All blogger snarkiness aside, we don't think Rick Santorum is evil; and so he does care about poor people when he can afford to, which is why Bono pals around with him, but he really, really cares about rich people, and big corporations and campaign donors, whenever he has to take a side, and whenever it truly matters.

So Santorum's not a Republican who hates poor people...he's just a hypocrite.

That's the Real Rick.

(Tribute to Santorum video via The Pennsylvania Progressive)

Tags: Commentary, PA Politics, Santorum, David Brooks, Video