Don't google Santorum. Just don't.

Driving down south, I listened to news coverage of last Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses on the car radio for hours, not because I’m invested in the outcome of the GOP presidential nomination process but because the other choices were music that reminded me of my family, which I was leaving; offensive, right-wing claptrap by talk show hosts whose pants were surely on fire; and cloying platitudes about how Jesus loves me and wants me to lose weight, stop engaging in ungodly behavior and accept him as my personal savior in order to be guaranteed entrance into the kingdom of heaven upon my earthly demise. Given my choices, the blowhards at CNN (who were being simulcast on an Atlanta radio station) were the clear favorites.

Incidentally, the number of religious radio stations in Georgia is staggering. I expected to see the people of Atlanta behaving all piously and virtuously and sporting wings and halos but apparently they masquerade as regular folk when their sphere is penetrated by interlopers like me.

I was amused by how animated the news dudes were about the horse race between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum – as you probably know, Romney ended up cleaning Santorum’s clock by a massive eight votes – and how dedicated they were to covering the story as if the outcome mattered. I knew Romney was the presumed GOP

frontrunner; before Tuesday, all I knew about Rick Santorum – whom the commentators couldn’t praise enough for visiting all of Iowa’s 99 counties and “truly earning” his status – was that he’s a bigoted politician from Pennsylvania who likes to dress his eight-year-old daughter and her doll in matching Gingham dresses.

It turns out I was missing a lot.

I read a Mother Jones article entitled, “Rick Santorum’s Anal Sex Problem” and learned that Santorum, who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007, incurred the wrath of syndicated columnist Dan Savage back in 2003 when he compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality. Savage, who is gay, linked Santorum’s last name to "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" and launched a website, SpreadingSantorum.com, to immortalize the definition. (The site, which I’ve added to the “Links I Like,” appears active.)

I also learned that Santorum, a pro-life zealot who’s described contraception as a “license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,” supports privatizing social security, bombing Iran,* and teaching intelligent design as a legitimate scientific theory in science classes.

Santorum is on record saying that liberalism contributed to the child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and the distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility about which John F. Kennedy spoke has caused “great harm in America.”

A contributor to the Faux “News” Channel, Santorum has cozied up to Israel and denounced “radical Islam,” stated that English should be declared the official language of the United States, and referred to the scientific opinion on climate change as “junk science.” (He thinks global warming is a "beautifully concocted scheme" by the political left and "an excuse for more government control of your life.")

For more on why this nutcase shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office, even on a White House tour, check out this story at Addictinginfo.org or this one at Thinkprogress.org.

I’m not sure why today’s Republicans think it’s wise to allow certifiable loons to take center stage and represent them to the nation. Nor can I explain why so many politicians like Santorum and Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, who have big jobs, good educations and assumed intellect – and who’ve raised or are raising children, for Pete’s sake – prove upon closer examination to be so cerebrally bereft. In a party where concern for all Americans is derided as a socialist affectation, where Newt Gingrich is thought to be a sage and Rush Limbaugh a voice of reason, it’s not surprising that Rick Santorum would capture the votes of 30,007 myopic, white Iowans. I just hope truly wiser heads prevail next November.


* Santorum has said Iran is at the center of “much of the world’s conflict.” In 2005, he sponsored the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which appropriated $10 million aimed at regime change in Iran and passed overwhelmingly. He voted against an amendment, however, that would have closed a loophole allowing companies like Halliburton to do business with Iran.

Sources: Mother Jones, Addictinginfo.org, Thinkprogress.org.