THIS WEEK'S VILLAGE IDIOT: RICK SANTORUM

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says John F. Kennedy's iconic 1960 speech on religion made him want to throw up. To help you decide whether you share Santorum's sentiments, be sure to grab your vomit bags and check out Kennedy's speech here ...




Santorum's comments demonstrate - on so many levels - how little respect he has for the intelligence of the American electorate.

It's one of the reasons why Santorum likes to tell the story of his coal miner grandfather, and how his family lived in public housing on V.A. grounds. Tough life for the grandson of a coal miner, wouldn't you say? What he doesn't say is that his father had a Ph.D. in psychology, and that his mother was a nurse. Both worked for the Veterans Administration, which provided the family with a taxpayer subsidized apartment.

If you want to vomit now, you're not alone.

Then again, keep in mind that Santorum is also the same guy who says he defends the dignity of every life, but then supports torture, supports a "qualified" death penalty, opposes euthanasia for the terminally ill, and believes that over 100,000 civilians killed (collateral damage) in a reckless war of choice is justified. Seriously, where's the spiritual and philosophical symmetry between your claim to defend the sanctity of life and then turning a blind eye to torture, human suffering, and death?

It's no wonder that Santorum thinks former prisoner of war John McCain doesn't understand torture and that women who've been raped should welcome their "horrible gift from God." He's an idiot.

Rick Santorum. Man of faith. Man of vomit. That's good enough to make Santorum this week's village idiot.

- Mark

UPDATE (3/1/12): More evidence that Santorum deserves to be this week's village idiot. From the Huffington Post ...

On ABC's Sunday morning show "This Week," Santorum defended his recent attack on President Obama in which he called him a "snob" for wanting all Americans to get a college education. Colleges are little more than liberal "indoctrination mills," he said, explaining why Obama would want your child brainwashed in one. This wasn't just the empty rhetoric of an old culture warrior, he offered.

"I’ve gone through it," Santorum explained. "I went through it at Penn State. You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed, you are -- I can tell you personally, I know that, you know, we -- I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views” ...

Early this week, The New Republic interviewed Bob O'Connor, one of Santorum's old political science professors who taught Santorum in four different classes. O'Connor objected to Santorum's persecution charge. "He really has a rich fantasy life," O'Connor told TNR in an email. "PSU in the 1970s was not exactly Berkeley. I resent this sort of accusation [that] I and my colleagues graded students on the basis of their political attitudes. Ridiculous.”

Santorum's fraternity brothers were fairly shocked by their friend's assertions. Was there any kind of oppression at the frat house? "Not the group that I hung with," Elliehausen says. "I wasn't aware of any oppression of any sort," Vondercrone says. "He seemed like a happy guy."

Santorum's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.