Rick "do not let your children google him" Santorum

                                        Image via WikipediaRick Santorum announced he is running for President of the United States.  Lets take a quick look at Rick Santorum and see if he measures up.  

 Mr. Santorum was on Meet the Press this morning 6/12/11 where the following exchange took place:

QUESTION: Do you believe that there should be any legal exceptions for rape or incest when it comes to abortion?
SANTORUM: I believe that life begins at conception, and that that life should be guaranteed under the Constitution. That is a person.
QUESTION: So even in the case of rape or incest, that would be taking a life?
SANTORUM: That would be taking a life, and I believe that any doctor that performs an abortion, I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion, should be criminally charged for doing so.

Here Mr. Santorum is talking about his personal religious beliefs.  But he is also stating that people who do not share his personal religious beliefs are committing crimes and should be thrown in jail.   His personal  belief or rather more correctly his  inability to distinguish a fertilized egg from an embryo, fetus or a child also means that if elected president both abortion and many popular forms of birth control (mainly intrauterine devices and the morning after pill) would be illegal and subject to prosecution.  I personally find it frightening that he values his personal beliefs more than women's rights to their own bodies. 

On Medicare, Santorum was vocal in his praise of Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare, claiming Paul Ryan's plan gave seniors “the resources to go out and choose what's best for themselves."  Which is a lie, seniors still could choose their plan, but they wouldn't have the resources to purchase it. 

On Social Security, Rick Santorum as a senator wrote a letter urging the privatization of Social Security.  Thankfully, no one listened to George Bush or Rick Santorum in 2005 when they tried to privatize Social Security.

How about the Bush Tax cuts, we all have seen how disastrous those cuts were to our economy, infrastructure and debt.  Rick Santorum doesn't shine here either, he voted for both of the Bush tax cuts, the medicare part d and the two wars.  He also dismissed claims that the Bush tax cuts would add to the deficit or unfairly favor the wealthy both of those were undoubtedly true.  Gee, Rick Santorum is striking out here with 8 strikes and no balls.  


                                      Image via WikipediaRick Santorum claims that Senator John McCain, a U.S. veteran who was held captive for 5 years and the only republican in office who actually has been tortured: “He doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works,” the former Pennsylvania senator said: “I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden.”

First, he's wrong, John McCain understands torture because unlike all the other republicans beating the war drums he actually fought in one.  Senator McCain was tortured in North Vietnam and when he wasn't being tortured for those 5 years, you can damn well be sure he was thinking about it.  Second, to a man almost every military interrogator will tell you that torture is counterproductive and produces little if any valuable information.   Prisoners being tortured will say anything to make it stop, you have no way of knowing if any of the information is correct.  Third, none of the "advanced interrogation" techniques led to the killing of Bin Laden, so says John McCain after a full briefing by Leon Panneta the current director of the CIA.  Obviously, Rick Santorum knows absolutely nothing, except he might know about being broken, because his brain isn't now or in the past functioning very well. Rick Santorum doesn't measure up: 11 strikes, no balls and no brains, but he does have lots of unprovable beliefs.