You know, we really tried.

Over the past year and a half we haven't said a thing about Rick. We kept our thoughts to ourselves when he wrote his columns and gave his wing-nutty speeches. We thought if we ignored him he might go away, but nooooooooo. Rick will not go away. His voice and influence seem to be resurgent in certain circles. Over the last few weeks there have been a number of things that made us think about firing this blog back up -- including an email he sent out for something called the National Organization for Marriage about the "battle for marriage," but we'll get to that one later.

Today was the final straw. We just found a post on an ABC News blog about the fact that Rush Limbaugh, apparently unhappy with the conservative cred of John McCain's Vice Presidential contenders, has suggested our favorite former Pennsylvanian as a good choice for the veep nomination:

Limbaugh suggested "someone like Rick Santorum other than Tom Ridge. How about some discussion from the McCain campaign about a conservative who can be counted on across the board, who can help lead the country in the right direction. Who can help rebuild the Republican party — Lieberman can’t do that - and rebuild the conservative movement - neither McCain nor Lieberman nor Ridge can do that.”

Now don't get us wrong. For purely selfish, sporting purposes, we could not agree more with Captain Prescription. After all, who knows more about what your average rabid, delusional, nutbag right-winger is looking for in a vice presidential candidate than the Rushster? Certainly not us.

Do you think putting Ricky on the ticket would give McCain a better chance at winning Santorum's home state of Virginia? How about Rick's old state of Pennsylvania? Keep in mind, Rick got almost 40% of the vote in PA last time he was on a ballot. Seems like Rush might have really thought this one out, huh?

Rick is joining the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank. He will be running the new America's Enemies program and says he wants to "contribute to the world of ideas." Judging from the name of the program he'll be running we assume he means the world of ideas of which countries we should invade next.

Read more here.

That's right, after years of receiving many kisses from Rick Santorum, U.S. Senators won't be getting any more.

Seriously. Read the story.

Rick Santorum recently gave an interview to Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, in which he made the following remarks accusing the American media of aiding terrorists by covering deaths in Iraq.

They felt it was their obligation to go out every day and report as they do. And they report death- as I say, "one side of the story." I understand why they do it, and I am not saying that they don't have to do it.

But understand, by doing so, all you do is accomplish exactly what the terrorists want you to do, which is to weary the American public of this war -- and eventually cause us to stop fighting it. That is the end result of what we are doing.

I have always said that if World War II was covered like this war, I really, very seriously doubt that we would have ever won that war. Certainly, we might have been willing, when the losses got so high, to negotiate a compromise or negotiate some sort of surrender. The death that went on -- I always remind people that we lost more people in a couple of hours on D-Day that we have in the entire war (in Iraq).

The amount of death and destruction that occurred in the previous wars, under the current media coverage, would not have tolerated by the American public.

The bottom line is, the media -- and I am not saying that they are intending to do this -- but simply by what they are doing, without question, it is aiding the terrorists and their objective.

As we told you last month, Rick Santorum and his offices have stopped responding to email from constituents (unless you count an auto response).

It seems that we're not alone in finding that problematic.

Brett Lieberman writes about Rick Santorum's future job prospects in today's Harrisburg Patriot-News. Among the possibilities are joining a law firm, hitting the lecture circuit and becoming a cable news talking head:

Santorum has been negotiating a cable deal, which political insiders say most likely is with Fox -- though MSNBC and CNN have been mentioned as well -- "to be a screamer," as one political operative put it.

"You could see that as a pretty easy transition for that guy," said one Republican State Committee official. "He likes to get up and speak."

Looks like Rick will continue to provide us with material...

This morning Rick Santorum told Imus that the U.S. Government should have sent money to striking Iranian bus drivers in an attempt to topple the Iranian Government.

Think Progress has the video.

Rick Santorum will remain a U.S. Senator and continue to receive a taxpayer-funded salary to represent the people of Pennsylvania until January 3rd. He also has 9 offices that will continue to operate at taxpayer expense.

So we found it very interesting when we learned that Santorum is apparently no longer interested in providing constituent service, or even responding to requests or inquiries sent to his office.

How did we learn this? A reader recently sent us a copy of the following auto-response email she received after submitting an email through Santorum's senate web site. We then also submitted an email to Rick's office and received the same response. Here it is:

Thank you for contacting me. As always, I appreciate hearing from you.
As you may know, the United States Senate is currently in a period of
transition. Accordingly, your concerns may be better met by contacting
your new Senator, Bob Casey, Jr. You may call the Capitol Switchboard for
Senator Casey’s contact information at 202-224-3121. I also recommend
that you contact Senator Arlen Specter or your Representative in the
House.

Thank you again for contacting me.

Sincerely,
Rick Santorum
United States Senate

Since Rick is no longer interested in serving his constituents, do you think he'll stop collecting his salary from the taxpayers? Of course not, because Rick has always believed the rules are different for him.

In today's Allentown Morning Call, G. Terry Madonna and Michael Young give us a history of Rick Santorum's career and a look at his future prospects. Here's an excerpt:

The remaining question about Santorum is whether we have seen the last of him. Will this defeat be the final chapter in a 16-year epic that
saw both him and his party soar to giddy heights? Many believe his
political career is over. No Pennsylvania politician in modern times
has ever lost a Senate seat and come back to be re-elected.
Additionally, his opportunities in Pennsylvania are limited. Another
Senate seat does not come up in Pennsylvania for four years, and it is
currently held by Republican Arlen Specter. Similarly, the next
governor's race is four years away.

Some have speculated that Santorum may run for president in 2008. That belief has been fueled by his Churchillian turn to foreign policy and radical Islam during the final days of his campaign against Bob Casey. But a Santorum run seems a long shot at this point. Would any party give their presidential nomination to someone who couldn't win in his home state?

Still, if Santorum does run for president, a chilling historical
parallel will be noted: the Republican Party once actually did give its
nomination to someone who had just lost a Senate race. The nominee,
like Santorum, was a polarizing politician with strong views and a
deeply rooted ideology. The year was 1860, his name was Abraham
Lincoln, and his election kicked off the single most tempestuous period
in American history.

You may have seen the New York Times story about recently declassified Iraqi documents that the Bush Administration put on a Web site as a result of pressure from Congressional Republicans, including Rick Santorum. It turns out some of those hastily declassified documents contained information about nuclear research that basically laid out how to create a nuclear bomb.

In light of those facts, we thought you might like to see the video of Rick's announcement of the web site, in which he takes credit for getting the documents made public and says he's not concerned that any of the information is sensitive, even though he admits to having "no idea" what's contained in the documents. Brilliant! Here's the video (partial transcript below).

We're trying to assure that all the information that we have gathered from the previous regime in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime, is being made available to the public as quickly as possible. With a bias toward making this information unclassified and released.
...
And he [President Bush] assured me that they were going to be releasing documents in a steady stream over a period of time. Not picking and choosing documents, but releasing documents, a lot of which will not have been interpreted, out into the Internet for people to see. I think that is a wonderful step forward. There is no question that, as a result of that release, we will be able to get that information analyzed by people all over the world.
...
All of this information is at least three years old and a lot of this information is much older than that. And so there seems to very little concern, at least from my perspective, that this information is sensitive from a classification point of view.
...
The American public has a right to know this information. We have no idea, you know, what - given the volumes of documents we're talking about here, 48,000 boxes of documents - what's in there. But we think it's important that the public get a view.

Rick Santorum says that there are a lot a of ways, rather than being a Senator, that he could take better financial care of his family. Here's the video:

This weekend Rick Santorum said Sean Hannity "does more to help the cause of goodness and greatness here in the United States of America than anybody else." Really? More than ANYBODY ELSE? Here's the video: