My Children, My Shills

Maybe Rick Santorum had all those children because he knew he'd eventually need them to be players in his TV commercials.

I refer specifically to the Junior Senator's latest bit of video venality, a TV spot which stars (I think) every one of Rick's numerous sprogs. In it, each child spouts some blather about why Daddy moved to Virginia and why having the taxpayers of Penn Hills pay for their narrow-minded home schooling was a GOOD THING!

This has the ham hand of John Brabender all over it, from its lame pretense to the vacuous script. And it shows, I believe, just how completely desperate the Santorum campaign is.

I suppose you can say "no harm, no foul" if you use kids as props or to say "cute things" in political ads. It's been done forever. But when you push them in front of the camera in an effort to refute (lie about, would be a more accurate description) real and important issues, you've crossed the line in my book.

Of course, crossng the line has never much bothered Santorum. He'll cross whatever line he has to in an effort to maintain his position in the DC power structure. USE Terri Shaivo for political gain? No problem. Cross the line. USE a specious claim about WMDs for political gain? No problem. Cross the line with abandon! The list is even longer than the "50 Things You Should Know About Rick."

This ad amounts to a subtle form of child abuse. No one got whipped or beaten or bloodied, (nor were they once again exposed to a deceased fetus) but the children have been manipulated by their parents in a way that I find, and I think many others would fine, offensive. The kids, all of whom are below the legal age of consent, had lies and prevarications put in their mouths. They were, essenntially, forced to be unwitting tools in an ongoing campaign of deceit and disinformation.

A real Christian would not stage manage his children. He would, in fact, protect them. Hide them. Cloister them. Think about it for a moment; here's the Senator and Wife who made a faux stink about people walking up the driveway of their faux home. The Wife who called the Capitol Police. The Senator who feigned shock. Yet they are both willing participants in the misuse and abuse of their children for political gain.

If that's part of the Catholic catechism, it's a part I never learned.