Ricko The Sicko

I'm sorry I never got to comment on Newt Gingrich while he was the right-wing white ring's flavor of the month, but fortunately (for the sake of having someone to bash), Richard John Santorum has stepped in to fill the void and is widely expected to by the main conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential nomination contest.

Before you start thinking that a nice, upstanding family man like Santorum can't possibly be as horrid as Rick Perry or as dumb as Michele Bachmann, here are some things you ought to know about the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania hoping to become the nation's 45th President, some of which I may have mentioned in earlier posts:

 Rick Santorum told a crowd at a Christian college, in response to a student's suggestion that maybe God doesn't appreciate the fact that Americans die because they have no health insurance, that he rejected such a suggestion. "People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their health care. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to," he said. "And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit." In fact, a 2009 Harvard Medical School study found that 45,000 deaths in the U.S. are attributed to lack of health insurance every year.

He complained about regulations forcing states like Iowa to sign more people up for Medicaid, which he saw as an expansion of the welfare state. He also added that the last thing he wanted to do was give black people welfare when he wanted to incentivize them to work, as if everyone on welfare were black.

He not only advocates the re-instatement of "Don't ask, don't tell" in the military, he supports a constitutional amendment that would invalidate same-sex marriages. Santorum supports an anti-abortion policy that would throw abortionists in jail for murder. He also likened homosexuality to "man-on-dog" sex.

I didn't want to bring this up again - even though this is primarily why I call him Ricko the Sicko - but he and his wife slept with a dead baby between them. After their son Gabriel was born prematurely and lived only two hours, the Santorums - the Santora? - slept in a hospital bed, separated by the corpse of their infant son. They brought his lifeless body home to present them to their children. Two of their children, Elizabeth and Johnny, held the baby "with so much love and tenderness," Mrs. Santorum later wrote, addressing her deceased son in the second person. "Elizabeth proudly announced to everyone as she cuddled you, 'This is my baby brother, Gabriel; he is an angel.'"

Mitt Romney, as a Mormon, believes in magic underwear, eternal marriage, and, speaking of angels, an angel named Moroni who will announce the return of Christ just before the world ends. Frankly, I don't see him to be nearly as daffy as Santorum.