While Rick continues shilling his book all over cable TV, two central Pennsylvania columnists are skewering him today.
First, we have Francis Volpe in the Carlisle Sentinel. Francis believes Rick should stop digging himself such a large hole:
...Santorum's book idealizes the "Ozzie and Harriet" family at the expense of everyone else's living arrangements. Hardly anybody opposes the two-parent-family model, no matter what conservatives like Santorum would have you think.
But there's an old saying: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. A lot of Harriets-in-training lost their Ozzies in job accidents, military service, or because their particular Ozzie ran off with Donna Reed, leaving Harriet to bring up David and Ricky alone.
Santorum, for all his "takes a family" posturing, is, in his book, a lot more worried about Harriet receiving a welfare check. And though he doesn't say it straight out, he strongly implies that accepting government assistance is directly related to moral turpitude.
Whatever happened to "judge not lest you be judged?" Plenty of good church-going people receive direct government aid, as Penn Hills School District will be happy to affirm.
Santorum has picked a peculiar career path for someone concerned with strengthening our moral fabric. Inside the Beltway, the Ten Commandments play second fiddle to the Seven Deadly Sins on a regular basis.
Ever hear of the "K Street Project?" It's a GOP initiative to strong-arm lobbying firms into firing Democrats and hiring Republicans. Santorum is a big player in this initiative, which reflects no New Testament value I'm familiar with.
You will recall the junior senator voted with the minority to impeach a Democratic president over a sexual peccadillo. Presented with the sorry saga of U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Wilkes-Barre — he kept a mistress for five years and is accused in a civil suit of assaulting her — Santorum said, "… we should look at the job that Congressman Sherwood is doing and make decisions based on the facts and the work that he's doing."
Like they say on the liberal blogs, IOKIYAR — It's OK If You're A Republican.
And Santorum doesn't do real well as a senator with "culture of life" issues outside of abortion. He's on board with capital punishment and the invasion of Iraq — both of which were condemned by Pope John Paul II, his spiritual leader.
For most people, religion and morals are a means to live a good life and try to make sense of life's big questions. For Santorum, they're a truncheon to pound political opponents with. Unfortunately, there's a big constituency for that, too.
Next up is
Nancy Eshelman in the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Nancy takes issue with the fact that Rick seems to only want to speak to reporters on his terms:
...In the midst of all this attention, Santorum arranged a conference call with the Catholic press.
Brett Lieberman, who writes for this newspaper from Washington, D.C., heard about the call and dialed in, even though neither he nor The Patriot-News fits the bill.
Santorum was on the line, decrying the controversy, accusing his political enemies of trying to weaken him while he runs "the top political race in the country."
Then he said, "It's sort of sad that they would use religion and this tragic time for purely partisan, blatantly political purposes."
'Cause, you know, Santorum would never do that.
Then, all of a sudden, Lieberman voiced a question.
"Senator," he said, "what I'm hearing from a lot of victims' groups ..."
Santorum interrupted. "Is this Brett Lieberman?"
When Lieberman said yes, Santorum demanded to know what he was doing on a conference call for Catholic press.
"You're not going to be on this call, and you're not going to ask a question," Santorum ordered.
Talking later to Santorum's communications director, Lieberman tried to justify his participation by noting The Patriot-News has Catholic readers and prints in the senator's home state.
He scored no points.
But when it comes to hawking his book, Santorum isn't fussy who's on the other end. Last night, for example, he was scheduled to appear on FOX News with Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes and on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.
His PR blitz calls his book "It Takes a Family," "one of the most profound and comprehensive books of political thought ever written by a sitting United States senator."
It's also one of the scariest.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Does anyone else find it problematic that Rick would kick a reporter from a Pennsylvania newspaper off of a conference call for reporters? One can only guess that Rick didn't think Brett Lieberman would be as sympathetic as members of the Catholic press.
