Brazenly Dishonest


Despite flirting with deceit in Saturday night's debate in New Hampshire, Rick Santorum continues to display more candor than common sense- which, admittedly, is not difficult.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos raised the issue of contraception- it is, incredibly, an issue with this motley crew of Repub contenders- and Santorum commented

But I do agree with -- obviously we have a right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment. But that’s not what the Griswold decision nor the Roe v. Wade decision were about.
They created through a penumbra of rights a new right to privacy that was not in the Constitution. And what I’ve -- and that’s, again, I sort of agree with Governor Romney’s assessment -- legal assessment, it created a right through boot-strapping, through creating something that wasn’t there. I believe it should be overturned.

Somehow, Rick Santorum simultaneously finds a right to privacy in the Constitution and believes it inapplicable to a woman's reproductive freedom or the freedom to use artificial contraception.      It is an extraordinary conclusion, but perhaps unsurprising when one realizes that even among GOP voters, there is strong support for the idea that Americans deserve some privacy.     Hence:    support for the concept of privacy, just not with abortion or birth control.    Priceless.

Still, Santorum has made it clear that he would be pleased if individual states outlawed contraceptive use, as they were able to do prior to Griswold v. Connecticut. The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, however, refuses to believe.     She claims of Santorum
    
In particular, what fuels some of these Internet frenzies is that he told a blogger last October that, as president, he would talk about the “dangers of contraception.” But before you get worried that, if he’s elected, we’re in for a nationwide lecture, when he was pressed on what exactly this means, he made it expressly clear that he believes this is not an issue for the president to take on in any kind of legislation.

That blogger was the conservative Shane Vander Hart, to whom the former Pennsylvania Senator and Virginia resident commented

One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is what I think is the danger of contraception.   The whole sexual libertine idea that many in the Christian faith have said, well, it's ok, contraception's ok.   But it's not ok.

It's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.     It is supposed to be within marriage.    It is supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal and also unitive but also procreative and that's the perfect way that sexual union should happen.   When you take ay part of that out, we diminish the act.

If you can take one part out, if it's not for the purpose of procreation,t hat's not one of the reasons you diminish this very special bond between men and women.     So why can't you take other parts of it out?     It becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure....

Almost as if to disabuse anyone of the notion that it is of mere academic interest or a subject of stimulating discussion, Santorum only last week told ABC News' Jake Tapper

The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.

Lopez herself finds Santorum's career "characterized by a mix of approaches, including using the levers of government (emphasis mine) and the powerful platforms available to those in the public square...."    He has publicly argued that states ought to be able to impose contraceptive bans and refers to sex for purposes other than procreation as "license"-  and Lopez believes he won't "take on any kind of legislation."

Notwithstanding his failure to level with the voters about the right to privacy, Rick Santorum has been forthright in stating his opposition to sex for pleasure and prevention of childbirth.   Can't Kathryn Jean Lopez take him at his word?

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Dead On


It would be difficult- difficult, not impossible- to ascertain the worst response to a question at the GOP presidential debate (transcript here) held last night at St. Anselm's college in New Hampshire.        But determining the best is a slam dunk.

When an answer is wise, constitutionally solid, historically accurate, and delivered as a rebuke to a fellow candidate, it stands alone and apart.         It began when ABC's Diane Sawyer, unintentionally channeling the "come home, America" of George McGovern in 1972, asked Mitt Romney "Governor, time to come home?"       The former Massachusetts governor responded

Well, we want to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can. And Governor Huntsman says at the end of 2013 the -- the -- the president and the -- the commanders are saying they think 2014 is a better date. We’ll get a chance to see what happens over the coming year....
And I would bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, of course, based upon my own experience there, going there, informing myself of what’s happening there and listening to the commanders on the ground. 

Asked if he disagreed, Jon Huntsman responded

I would have to tell Mitt that the president of the United States is the commander-in-chief. Of course you get input and -- and advice from a lot of different corners of Washington, including the commanders on the ground.
But we also deferred to the commanders on the ground in about 1967, during the Vietnam War, and we didn’t get very good advice then....

While the President's role as commander-in-chief is strictly limited, the question pertained strictly to Afghanistan.     If someone runs for the presidency, he (or she) ought to be willing to assume the responsibility of the office.      Strategic and even tactical decisions are in the purview of the President- and Article II of the U.S. Constitution accordingly specifies "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."      
A candidate should not be able to hide behind the uniform of a military officer.     Anyone not willing to accept- indeed, embrace- a critical responsibility of the office should instead push for a cabinet position or serve as a governor, run for Senator and President, and thereafter claim he is not a career politician.






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Rick Santorum Is Something


I served with Mike Huckabee, I knew Mike Huckabee, Mike Huckabee was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Mike Huckabee.

Rick Santorum is no Mike Huckabee (and Lloyd Bentsen probably never was a friend of Jack Kennedy, anyway), though none of the rest is true.        But it appears there are some in the media who are making Rick Santorum out to be the second coming of Mike Huckabee.         (Apparently, it's the second coming of someone else which is on the mind of the candidate himself.)

Blogging in the UK Telegraph, Dr. Tim Stanley, described as "a historian of the United States," calls Santorum a "working class hero" advocating "economic populism."       Charles Krauthammer says the Virginian  "participated in George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism."    Joe Klein refers favorably to "Santorum's brand of blue-collar populism."       The Daily's Reihan Salam, a regular on Up with Chris Hayes, argues "Santorum could shift the intra-Republican conversation away from pointless factional fights over border enforcement and the individual mandate toward the all-important subject of how to raise wages and household incomes."

And gushing after the Iowa caucus, CBN's David Brody summarized:     "And now here he is: The Mike Huckabee of 2012."

Huckabee once branded the Club for Growth the "Club for Greed," a characterization nearly as bold as it is accurate.       He is no genuine populist but may be, in a party devoted to the wealthiest 10% of the population, what passes for a rough approximation of a populist.   However, as for the newest heartthrob of many Repub conservatives, The New Republic's Simon van Zuylen-Wood explains

Since losing his Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2006, Santorum has used his connections to land a series of highly-paid jobs. Consol Energy, a natural gas company specializing in “hydrofracking” and the fifth-largest donor to his 2006 campaign, paid him $142,000 for consulting work. He also earned $395,000 sitting on the board of United Health Services (UHS), a for-profit hospital chain whose CEO made contributions to his Senate campaigns and which stood to benefit from a big hike in Medicare payments Santorum proposed in 2003. (Incidentally, the Department of Justice sued UHS for Medicare and Medicaid fraud during Santorum’s four-year tenure on its board.) Santorum also earned paychecks from a religious advocacy group, a lobbying firm, and a think tank. For pushing legislation benefitting UHS and several other companies, one ethics group named Santorum to its “most corrupt Senators” list.

Santorum has made his post-Senate career doing the sort of quasi-lobbying that helped sink Newt Gingrich’s campaign in Iowa. But in fact, while still in office, he was a central actor in an even more sordid venture: The K Street Project. Started in 1989 by GOP strategist Grover Norquist and brought to prominence by former House majority leader Tom DeLay in 1995, the K Street Project was a highly organized effort to funnel Republican Congressional staffers into jobs at lobbying firms, trade organizations, and corporations, while attempting to block Democrats from those same posts. From 2001 until 2006, Santorum was the Project’s point man for the Senate, while House Majority Whip Roy Blunt manned the House side.

In 2006, the K Street Project was effectively forced to shut down amid public outcry; the following year, an ethics reform law made such outfits illegal. But in its heyday, it helped create an unprecedented revolving door between the White House, Congress and K Street, blurring distinctions between Republican policy and corporate welfare. As Elizabeth Drew put it in a 2005 New York Review of Books piece, “Democratic lobbyists have been pushed out of their jobs as a result; business associations who hire Democrats for prominent positions have been subject to retribution. They are told that they won’t be able to see the people on Capitol Hill they want to see.” Nicholas Confessore, in a groundbreaking 2003 Washington Monthly expose of the Project, detailed the goal bluntly: “First, move the party to K Street. Then move the government there, too.”

At the center of all this was Santorum. According to Confessore, Santorum conducted weekly breakfasts with lobbyists, and occasionally Congressmen and White House staff, during which he attempted to match Republican Hill staffers with K Street job openings. As Confessore put it, “Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican—a Senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated.” The group refused to meet with Democrats, and threatened sanctions against lobbies that did.

Revolving door tactics, until then de facto lobbying policy, were formalized and transformed into a “pay to play” system by the K Street Project. In 2003, after the top post at The Motion Picture Association of America went to a Democrat instead of a Republican, House Republicans reneged on an impending tax break, hitting the movie industry with a $1.5 billion bill. After the Democrat was chosen, Roll Call reported that “Santorum has begun discussing what the consequences are for the movie industry.” (Santorum, though he often denies his involvement in the K Street Project, more or less confirmed his involvement in the MPAA flap.) Later that year, the Washington Postrevealed that the House Financial Services Committee pressured a consortium of mutual funds to oust a top lobbyist who was a Democrat in exchange for relaxing a pending investigation. After the smoke cleared, she was replaced by a Republican.


Quite the populist; quite the man of the people, and one who currently is in New Hampshire urging de facto cuts to Social Security.      He now is skimpy on details, but was not so when he ran (successfully) for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania (a state he later would go on to serve from suburban Virginia), when he advocated raising the eligibility age "to at least 70."       That move would further impede the opportunity of young people to gain employment, increase competition for scarce jobs,  and lower wages, a (sarcasm alert) fine objective for a candidate who, Salaam imagines, is interested in "how to raise jobs and household incomes."

If Santorum has become interested in raising jobs and household incomes, it would be a complete reversal from his days as a U.S. Senator, in which he was in the grip of a generous corporate donor, the down-home, worker-friendly, small business known as Wal-Mart.      Opposing Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage. proposing to allow companies to restrict payment of overtime, and supporting repeal of the estate tax on multimillionaires (to whom it applies), Santorum exhibited the kind of "compassionate conservatism" guys like Krauthammer can warm up to.

Give the candidate credit.     While it's difficult to ascertain what the GOP's leading presidential candidate believes about anything, we know Rick Santorum opposes abortion, gay rights, and artificial birth control, the latter to the point of supporting a right of a state to ban its use.      He is not a populist, but being a fanatic should count for something.






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Sex, With A Condition

Rick Santorum is no hypocrite.

The right-wing ex-Senator has seven children, exercising (with his wife) the inalienable right to have numerous offspring or, as he would think of it, "be fruitful and multiply."

Amid the impromptu debate about homosexual unions Santorum had at a stop in Concord, New Hampshire, the Virginian laid bare his view of conception.      

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the candidate "said he believed that God created men and women for the purpose of reproduction and that the relationship deserved society's sanction as marriage."        CBS News observed Santorum "restating his view that God created men and women with the specific purpose to reproduce" and quoted him asserting "I believe God made man that way."

Credit Santorum, a devout Roman Catholic, with being honest, up to a point.      He could have been more explicit and admitted that he based his theory on Genesis 1:28, in which God commanded “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

If God created men and women to reproduce, certainly, gay men and women need not apply. Single men and women also are excluded.      Surely, Santorum does not believe they should have sex and conceive children- although if they would be so immoral as to have the former, he probably would consider the latter a blessing.           And a married heterosexual couple without children?     Men and women were created for reproducing, he believes; marriage must be sanctioned in order to encourage that.      Presumably, couples who choose not to have children or who are unable to have children are equally at odds with God's will.

For 7,000 years or so, human beings have enthusiastically fulfilled God's preference that they "be fruitful and multiply."       Santorum is seriously mistaken if he believes that, in the absence of prolific conception on the part of his countrymen (countrywomen?), God's command has been (or is) being ignored, given that

The world’s population is now more than 6.8 billion and continues to grow by 83 million people per year. During the last half-century, the world’s population more than doubled. Between 1960 and 2010, the world population rose from 3 billion to 6.8 billion. In other words, there has been more growth in population in the last fifty years than the previous 2 million years that humans have existed. Currently the rate of population increase is 1.2% per year, which means the planet’s human population is on a trajectory to double again in 58 years. 

Even Rick Santorum would not claim that God was speaking directly to Americans.    The latter's admonition appears to have pre-dated the creation of Adam and Eve, who themselves were far more likely to have been residents of the Middle East or Persian Gulf region than of the U.S.A.       Still, for Santorum, the only life worth living consists of a man married to a woman and begetting offspring.         

Once the Iowa caucus drew to a close, Rick Santorum stated, to the praise of pundits everywhere, "What wins- what wins in America are bold ideas, sharp contrasts, and a plan that includes everyone."      Less than 48 hours later, that "plan that includes everyone" already had excluded most Americans.

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He Wants To Talk Sex



Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh pretended "now the long knives are out for Santorum; and I guarantee you: The fact that the media and the Democrats are trying to associate Santorum with "big government" is an indication of something very important."    He charged

Big government is being misused here when applied to Santorum. Big government as it's used today means welfare state, and Santorum does not believe in a welfare state. So the left is playing a rhetorical game here, folks, and I want to alert you to this. "Big government" has a specific meaning today, and it means welfare state. It means redistribution. It means high taxes. It means command-and-control of the economy. And that's not what Santorum believes. So the left knows that "big government" is a negative. It is a harmful term to attach to somebody, and that's why they're trying to attach it to Santorum. But Rick Santorum does not believe in the big government of Barack Obama. It's totally different thing for him.

Leave aside Limbaugh's presumably ignorant remark "the long knives are out for Santorum."        Democrats (including the Obama administration) believe that Mitt Romney will be the GOP presidential nominee and thus are attacking him, primarily.  Santorum may as well be a gnat- annoying, but (figuratively) dead soon.     And if that vast liberal conspiracy Rush imagines is portraying the former Pennsylvania senator and (while he was Pennsylvania senator) Virginia resident as a supporter of "big government," it would not be to denigrate, but rather legitimate, him.

But the bigoted bombastic blowhard is not the issue.       And neither is his charge "big government as it's used today means welfare state."      It may be to Limbaugh and to his dittoheads, with their eyes closed and fingers set firmly in their ears, so as not to see or hear anything that might upset their worldview.        But big government actually is, well, big government.

On caucus day, Santorum was interviewed by Jake Tapper of ABC News and reiterated his opposition to Griswold v. Connecticut, in which the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965 struck down a state law banning use of contraceptives by married couples.        He couched his enthusiasm in the concept of states' rights, maintaining

The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.  That is the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court, they are creating rights, and they should be left up to the people to decide.

You shouldn’t create constitutional rights when states do dumb things.      Let the people decide if the states are doing dumb things get rid of the legislature and replace them as opposed to creating constitutional laws that have consequences that were before them.

Though Santorum, eager to pretend he is not a moral scold, this time referred to "dumb things," words come back to haunt.     Interviewed in 2003, he explained that he supported the position of the state of Texas in Lawrence, in which the Court went on to strike down the Texas law banning gay sexual behavior.     Two men had been arrested and convicted of committing "deviate sexual intercourse, namely anal sex, with a member of the same sex (man)"  in their own home.       Santorum told the Associated Press reporter  

We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does.

Those laws, Santorum clearly believed (believes), are "there for a purpose," ostensibly because those sexual acts "undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family" and "undermine the fabric of our society."

Santorum's support for a government ban in one's home of behavior of which he disapproves extends beyond homosexuality.       He  asserted "I have no problem with homosexuality.   I have a problem with homosexual acts.      As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual."

These were not preferences expressed in 2003 by a philosophical theorist, constitutional lawyer, or Freddie Mac historian.      They were uttered then by a United States Senator who apparently was unconcerned that they would be considered extremist by a majority of citizens, given that most Pennsylvanians are not favorably disposed to a Western equivalent of Sharia law.

Such issues are not for the squeamish.   But Santorum himself, in a recent interview (video, here) with of Shane Vander Hart of caffeinatedthoughts.com, stated (at approximately 17:48)  “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."  

Unfortunately, ex-Senator Santorum was not asked in 2003 by the AP what the "variety of different acts" would entail, include or exclude.       But now that he is the second leading contender for his party's presidential nomination, it's time to have that conversation he is inviting and determine for ourselves whether the expansion of state power he contemplates fairly defines "big government" and vastly exceeds what most Americans have ever envisaged.

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One Step Closer


You knew it would happen.

This morning, MSNBC's Chris Jansing referred to a vague notion that "President Obama was the big winner last night."      Now, at 11:00 a.m. eastern, Ed Schultz is saying "the anti-Romney club is starting to galvanize" with "stars aligning" as Santorum becomes "the right candidate at the right time."    Last night, as Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney were running neck-and-neck, network heavies Schultz, Chris Matthews, and Lawrence O'Donnell already were pushing the idea that Romney is deeply distrusted within the GOP, Santorum is a growing force, or the race has become more unsettled.

Don't believe any of it.     There could be a late entrant to the field or maybe a draft at the convention, but either is unlikely.      If a candidate is chosen from among those currently in the race, we- and they- know who it will be.        There is a reason the former Massachusetts governor, in his speech to supporters after the caucus ended, congratulated the former Pennsylvania senator for scoring "a great victory" (not for doing well- but for a victory!) and it wasn't only to appear to be a nice guy.     He knows that ultimately Rick Santorum absolutely will not be the nominee.         In the past month or so, there has been only one candidate in the race with any chance to upend Romney at the convention and, thanks in part to the pounding Newt Gingrich took from Romney's SuperPAC, the former House Speaker is dead in the water.

Obama surrogates posing as pundits isn't pretty.     And it does no good for the liberal, or the Democratic, cause to have conservative and moderate Republicans, the mainstream media, and virtually everyone else in the country other than liberal Democrats to write off MSNBC, misjudging it as part of the "liberal media."          In prime time it is, with Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, and Lawrence O'Donnell, a network promoting not liberal causes or Democratic causes, but Barack Obama.     (Rachel Maddow, with somewhat more commitment to principle, is an exception.         And she is not likely to boost a GOP candidate hostile to gay rights.)       Sharpton, who wouldn't stop referring last night to "Willard" (instead of "Mitt" or "Romney"), is the most brazen example, having been plucked from the roster of informal Obama advisers in order to waste the viewer's time at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

Mitt Romney's 25% share of the overall GOP vote was, admittedly, underwhelming and unimpressive.     But he initially planned to bypass Iowa, figuring he could begin in New Hampshire where he was, and is, a heavy favorite.         Iowa, with its preponderance of evangelical Christians, was known to be unfriendly territory for the Mormon Romney, where in 2008 he was defeated by Reverend Mike Huckabee.       Romney had to avoid finishing third in Iowa; instead, he finished an extremely strong second or extremely weak first.

Gingrich now promises to be Barack Obama's prime surrogate.     He wouldn't put it that way, of course, and it might be unwitting, but his vow this morning to join Rick Santorum in denouncing and condemning Romney will be doing the President a great service.       That is, in the long run, advantageous for the country, chipping away at Romney's image to Obama's advantage.         But it's the only thing left for a bitter guy who knows it's over for him, with only a glimmer of hope for the candidate, Rick Santorum, he now has to pretend he likes.





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First, Second, Third (Or Not), And Outta Here


Bold!  Bold!    Governor Terry Branstad (sarcasm alert) goes out on the limb with his prediction of the outcome of tonight's Iowa caucuses.       The GOP chief executive, emboldened by polls showing Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul in a virtual dead-heat, has predicted that either Romney or Santorum will come in first but "you can't rule out Congressman Ron Paul."

He can't, but this blogger, who expected a Romney v. Clinton race last time around, will.

Paul has some money and a strong organization.      But his advantage in possessing rabidly enthusiastic supporters will be somewhat limited in the face of the fairly unusual January weather expected as the curtain rises at 7:00 p.m.(central time) in the overrated caucuses.     Further, in a survey conducted Tuesday through Friday of last week, fully 41% of likely participants said they still might change their minds.     They may vote for the surging Santorum, eventual nominee Romney, or even Winnie the Pooh (not permitted, actually) but they are not going to vote for Ron Paul, the second choice of virtually no Republican voter anywhere in the world.

If weather.com proves accurate, temperatures in the ten largest municipalities in Iowa will range from a low of 27 degrees in the eastern city of Davenport (population 99,685) and the northeastern city of Dubuque (population 57,637) to a high of 38 degrees in the western city of Council Bluffs.        While the average monthly temperature in January in Des Moines, capital of Iowa and its largest municipality, is 20.4 degrees, it is expected to be 35 degrees at 7:00 p.m. tonight.     No precipitation of any sort is expected in the ten locations and wind, projected to be high during the day, is expected to subside by evening.

This unseasonably good weather in all likelihood will benefit Mitt Romney, who is particularly popular among the elderly.     It will disproportionately harm Ron Paul, a hero among many college students, who are attracted by his isolationist tendencies and opposition to the federal drug law and are less put off by the ludicrousness of Paul's libertarianism of convenience.    They would have been the most likely to show up in any kind of weather.

Santorum, who clearly has momentum, should be slightly benefited by the good weather, given that it will enhance turnout with some individuals lured by the idea of going with the hot hand (sports metaphor).     In a poll recently (apparently in the past week, but difficult to determine exactly when) conducted by CNN of what it describes as 64 "business and conservative interest group leaders, veterans of previous caucus campaigns, and a variety of other party activists," 40 predicted a victory by Romney- and none by Santorum.     Further,   Romney has expressed confidence in winning, magnifying the risk in even a close second place finish.  

As someone who thought the St. Louis Cardinals would have a down year in 2011, I believe Rick Santorum will come in a very strong second to Mitt Romney tonight, with Ron Paul a relatively distant third.     And in a blow to political entertainment, say goodbye to Michelle Bachmann, who will hold off on making an endorsement.








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