In his quest to win the Michigan and Arizona primaries Tuesday and ultimately the GOP nomination for president, Rick Santorum has found a new target: higher education. Speaking Saturday at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Michigan, Santorum did his best at tossing red meat into the rapacious crowd:
"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!" He cited elitist "liberal college professors" in their "indoctrination mills." And he outrageously charged that the reason Obama wants everyone to attend college is that he "wants to remake you in his image."
Welcome to the new Republican Party. The party of homophobic, xenophobic, racist, anti-science, anti-education invective and hateful demagoguery. The party of mean and nasty and anti-accomplishment. The party that its iconic hero, Ronald Reagan, wouldn't recognize if Santorum himself fell on him.
Santorum, the candidate with undergraduate, MBA and law degrees, believes blue-collar youth should not share his college aspirations. Keep 'em stupid, is his new mantra. Sure, it's easier for the smart college guys like him to manipulate the dummies who don't know any better. Because a stupid electorate is an electorate that'll vote for hate-speaking boneheads like him. Wow. Nothing says "Oval Office" like "strive for mediocrity."
Santorum also criticized John F. Kennedy's speech that the separation of church and state is "absolute," saying it made him "almost throw up." He also has said that Obama has a "phony theology" and that his policies "don't follow the Bible." One thing's for sure: if JFK were around today I suspect he'd puke knowing that a narrow-minded, ignorant racist ideologue like Santorum was seeking his job.
But Santorum's not the only lunatic in this nut house. There's Newt Gingrich, and his reprehensible comments that Obama's an "anti-colonial Kenyan" who is "the most dangerous president in modern American history." And Ron Paul who, when he's not writing/publishing newsletters with racist rhetoric, is busy sounding like the crazy old grandpa at the BBQ. And Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts moderate who in a flash has become the biggest anti-abortion, anti-immigration, religiously dogmatic "severely conservative" strapped-to-the-roof-dog in the race.
What's that sound you say? That's the sound of a roaring engine as the Republicans drive off the political cliff.