Letters to the Editor
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duh
are there absolutely no qualifications for getting a newspaper column?
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What Santorum meant to say
The Republican Party was founded as the antislavery party. It was, thus, a regional party. After the Civil War, the North and Upper Midwest were Republican, the South and Southwest Democratic. By the late 1800s, the Republican party had forgotten its founding prinicples. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Democratic party realized it had to hold up the principles of equality and stand against racism. The Republicans saw a chance to gain power and embraced racism as a platform, attracting the Democrats who left the party for racist reasons, like Strom Thurmond. These racist attitudes persist to this day in the Republican party as illustrated by leaders of the party recently lamenting that Strom Thurmond didn't become president and institutionalize his racist ideas.
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"Thus speaketh Former Senator Santorum"
Emphasis on "Former".
I guess he has his finger right on the pulse of the people.
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Ja und?
As I see it, we can learn from Europe's mistakes, restructure our democracy to hear and implement the will of the people, and be happy - or we can have our own fascist regime, lose a really big war or two, and be forced by outside governments to restructure our democracy and to hear and implement the will of the people, and eventually be happy. Apparently Santorum has a different idea about which one is more appealing.
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Political Cliches
Rick Santorum is one of those people whose highest intellectual accomplishment is to master the craft of smoothly, confidently slinging cliches.
Not a trace of actual thought in this excerpt, no discovery, no educational value, not even any truth. Truth does not matter for these pompous, dangerous twits, as long as what they say is smooth and familiar.
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Santorum and new history
Perhaps Senator Santorum should explore the concept that his exalted party leaders have already killed the American dream of a just and free country. As a Republican disgusted by the destruction of the ideals that made America great by the neocons and chicken hawks that have taken over the party, I have. Senator McCain is not the problem, and twisting history in a newspaper column will not make it so.
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Santorum probably never has met an actual European...
The vast majority of Western Europeans are much happier, much safer than the vast majority of USA citizens. The Europeans can afford vacations; they have newer cars; they get much better free medical care and education.
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Santorum is a Moron
That's it. That's all.
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Santorum's qualifications
"are there absolutely no qualifications for getting a newspaper column?"
The Inquirer's struggling for relevance, like many a daily newspaper these days. By giving a column to the most loathed man in Pennsylvania, they show that, well, the paper's still relevant enough to get its readers upset. So, that's Santorum's main qualification: being loathsome. And, certainly, with the flat out lie about the Democrats' huge shift to the left, he fills the bill. Anyone comparing the Dems now to the Dems forty years ago can see that, in fact, the party has turned to the right on pretty much every issue except for gay rights (which, for a pathetic little homophobe like Santorum, of course counts for a lot).
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This is a new Republican talking point
It's a revisionist version of history meant to undercut Democratic criticism of how far the party has fallen since the days of Abraham Lincoln -- especially now that Barack Obama is in serious contention for the Democratic presidential nomination. The GOP is still the "party of Lincoln," Santorum says; it's those eeeevil Democrats who are the real racists. Those latte-swilling elitists are racists because they support multiculturalism, civil rights, and voting rights, and all of these things are bad because of their impact on the most oppressed group of people in human history, American white men. Oh, and the success of Condoleeza Rice proves that rank-and-file Republicans aren't racist, so there. This despite the Southern strategy, despite evidence that racist Democrats fled the party after LBJ pushed civil rights and the Great Society, despite Willie Horton and similarly racist attack ads, despite GOP policies that are specifically designed to hurt poor minority people, despite coded appeals to racism like the infamous "welfare queens" in their Cadillacs, and despite the "macaca" moment. A side benefit of his line of rhetoric is to make Republicans feel comfortable about their party's racist element.
Lil' Ricky isn't the only conservative bloviator who's flogging this particular talking point. He's just the most obnoxious.
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If the Salonistas get to call Republicans "racists," will I be allowed to call the Salonistas "whining, sissy, anti-American, nanny-state losers"?
Just asking. Name-calling seems like such a productive way to manage serious national affairs.
As for the "racism" charge, let's not look to Rick Santorum; he's too young. Let's find someone who was actually there to witness the Klan in the 40's and 50's, and who had a hand in fighting integration. Let's ask Robert Byrd, (D-W.VA), former "Kleagle" of the West Virgina Klan.
Okay?
Gosh, it would be nice if we could all get past the race issue. Let's ask Al Sharpton how to do that.
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"All that changed after the 1960's"
The idiot skipped over a big chunk of the 20th century. Unions were a powerful political and economic force in the North after the Depression. Their memberships were predominantly democrat. There were plenty of non-catholic democrats in the North.
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If he really represents the "majority" why doesn't he run for president?
Same reason Huckleberry is losing, because he DOESN'T! The culture war was always a species of fraud and nobody perpetuated the Piltdown Man con of a "moral majority" better then Santorum. I personally don't think he really believes his own rhetoric any more then any other elephant candidate but he even managed to fool some liberal commentators into thinking he did.
A man who claims to believe in "less government" while lobbying to change the constitution just so you can exclude all those icky gay people from society? Please!
If 30% of the population still believe that Bush was appointed by God, I'm not surprised that Santorum thinks he can get away with revisionist history.
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Rick Santorum's history mystery
Santorum is a dim bulb. By trying to concoct some analysis of a purported historical trend, he skipped the most obvious thing on his mind. He bet on the wrong horse. What say we check back with him in a few months and see what he thinks then. Bet he's a McMann by then.