Big Fish, Small Ethics; The Santorum Legacy

That flip-flopping you hear in the shallows of DC is the sound of right wing Senators and Congressman struggling desperately for a little air, as they find their good fortune being drained away to reveal the muddy, ugly reality of the Iraq War, corruption at the highest levels and an economy that isn’t nearly as robust as they’d wish. What they fear most, of course, is that they’ll never get back into the deep dark depths, that they’ll continue to sputter on the shoreline next year and that voters will have had enough of the stench come Election Day 2006.

Among this group, Rick Satorum is the biggest fish, a barracuda who wants people to believe he’s an angelfish, a pure political animal who wants people to think he’s a preacher. In the months ahead, Santorum, led by his spinmeisters and pollsters, will attempt to look like something he is not; reasonable. Indeed, the campaign to beat Bob Casey Jr., has already begun. But, in many ways, it’s more a campaign to make people forget who Santorum really is. In fact, Santorum’s media hack, John Brabender, was recently quoted as saying that (paraphrasing here) “people have already forgotten about Terri Schaivo.” This is, of course, wishful thinking. No one will forget Santorum’s sleazy political intrusion anymore than they’ll forget Bill Frist’s “disagnosis by VHS.”

But the signs of a “new, improved” Santorum are all around. He recently made a point of avoiding GWB when the President paid a visit to the soft coal section of PA. His campaign blamed the lack of co-dependency on a “scheduling conflict,” but you can be sure that, four years ago, Santorum would have cancelled an audience with the Pope to share the stage with Bush.

And this week, Ricky Flippy took another step toward abandonment of his cherished hard-line ideaological opinions. Frank Rick, columnist for the New York Times, summed it up today,

“No sooner did he stiff Mr. Bush in Pennsylvania than he did so again in Washington, voting with a 79-to-19 majority on a Senate resolution begging for an Iraq exit strategy. He was joined by all but one (Jon Kyl) of the 13 other Republican senators running for re-election next year. They desperately want to be able to tell their constituents that they were against the war after they were for it.” {emphasis ours}

Isn’t that special.

What is most disturbing to me, and I think it should be to the voters of Pennsylvania, is just how blithely Senator Santorum, whose raison d’etre is moral and ethical certaintude, shifts his positions to catch the prevailing winds, in much the same way that Captain Renault did in “Casablanca.” Minus, of course, the sense of humor.

So keep your nose to the wind over the coming weeks and months. It won’t be hard to sniff out the hypocrisy coming from the big flopping fish.