The Washington Post’s E.J Dionne shares his opinion…
Santorum: Weird extremism, or shrewd politics?
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Just when you thought that Rick Santorum had gone as far toward social-issue right as he possibly could, he takes several steps farther off the edge. His statement that John F. Kennedy’s historic 1960 speech on religious tolerance made him want to “throw up” and his declaration that President Obama is a “snob” for wanting kids to go to college took him to places that even very conservative Republicans dare not go.
It’s true that Santorum’s criticism of Kennedy’s speech echoes views common on the Catholic right. (For one of the very best and most thoughtful discussions of JFK’s speech, check out the transcript of this excellent event at Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture.)
But Santorum’s rather disgusting “throw up” line was, to say the least, very un-presidential. And if Santorum is seeking votes in Michigan today from older Catholic Reagan Democrats — and Catholics who converted to the GOP in the Gipper’s time — attacking the nation’s first and only Catholic president seemed very unwise. Many of these voters were once John F. Kennedy Democrats.
…
He polarizes people, that Rick Santorum (why else the Google bombing on his name?)
Observers wedded to a horse race or cock-fight model of the process (which is, I think, a fair view) are licking their lips at the drama of Mitt Romney’s ‘inevitability’ as GOP candidate being roiled.
Shades of the Hilary Clinton vs Obama primary contest.
I love observing American politics (…when it doesn’t make me want to throw up).
– P
Peter,
Santorum is a village idiot.
Nonetheless, it could be noted that the moral slopjar JFK’s conduct was pretty much “un-presidential” from the start to its premature finish, even if this fact violates the “Don’t speak ill of the dead” narrative…
Un-presidential conduct trumps un-presidential throwaway rhetoric?
Well, perhaps it should.
And yet Santorum gets no sympathy from me. Refer to previous considered analysis.
Santorum remains a goose. Effectively dissing the nonsense mythology and revisionism that is the liberal version of what JFK represented changes nothing…
Rgds,
*p*
Good points. – P
Here’s Newt Gingrinch’s response to Rick Santorum calling on him to pull out of the GOP primary after Super Tuesday’s result … calling him a ‘Typical Politician’. Ouch!
via Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/newt-gingrich-rick-santorum_n_1327703.html
Wouldnt know for a moment who santorum is – or if he is in fact a village idiot – which is a fairly specific thing to say about someone. Heard his name in variously meaningless soundbites recently. Amuses me how much some people seem to want to be seen to be ‘up with the play’ with American politics.
JFK wasnt a saint – but someone or some faction murdered the guy … didnt see-em murder Johnson or nixon or the two bushes (all of whom seemed to need a slap round the chops at least. So – call me simple – but if someone was enough of a threat to some group or groups to be murdered – i sort of tend to think they may have offered some good to mankind. Seems to me – only the good leaders seem to get murdered – the rest are either corrupt, semi corrupt – or have the right friends on the inside of the corruption.
Dont see many attempts on keys life do you – or do only the supposedly morally bankrupt irish catholic guys get plugged usually.
American politics … the game where only the good die young – the rest just provide pretentious discussion-fodder for equally pretentious people. At least thats what one could be tempted to think.
Gee Ivan, I’m not sure what to make of those comments.
It might seem ‘pretentious’ to you to discuss US politics, but I genuinely find it interesting – actually fascinating at times, as I’ve said before.
Sorry it doesn’t take your fancy.
Cheers, P
Not directed at anyone on here mate … just an observation. I did however take serious issue with JFK being dealt with as he was on here. No pollie is squeaky clean – great men have great flaws.
The way some people write about it – it seems to some (not all) to be “de rigeur” to be seen discussing same. Seems to me that US politics has a lot in common with the Roman Republic – wheels within wheels and machinations inside machinations – like one of those endless russian doll sets – one layer after another. Other thing is i seem to get the impression that system is sneaking into our type of democracy in NZ.
I share the Roman empire thought. Reading criticism of Pres. Obama’s AG Eric Holder declaring the US could kill its citizens without ‘judicial process’ (vs ‘due process’) seemed fairly imperial to me, too. And monstrous.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/06/attorney_general_holder_defends_execution_without_charges/singleton/
I liked and admired the Kennedys … and was/still am inspired by their oratory and their courage in difficult times. But let’s not kid ourselves. They were akin to political gangsters and Joe snr was an ambitious crook.
– P
PS: Nevertheless, the JFK, RFK assassinations were an obscenity and, along with Martin Luther King’s, silenced, frightened and traumatized generations.
“I liked and admired the Kennedys … and was/still am inspired by their oratory and their courage in difficult times.”
I quite like the Kennedy’s, but for me, the facts don’t line up like they were portrayed in an Oliver Stone movie…
Mr Kennedy’s war record certainly attests to his personal courage. Yet the issue here is his presumably his courageous in his political record?
I suppose being one of the biggest supporters and friends of Mr McCarthy and family might be construed as courageous in some way, although I am not sure how.
Similarly, effectively voting against Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Bills in the 1950s could be seen as courageous, but I am not sure that I see it this way.
The Bay of Pigs was a bold plan (courageous maybe?). Indeed, arguably no other President before or since Kennedy has used the CIA as extensively as he did.
Starting the Vietnam War could also be seen as another example of courage?
The Cuban Missile crisis showed Kennedy’s political courage to the fore – he baited Nikita Khrushchev, almost to the point of global destruction. The stitch up deal to remove the US missiles from Turkey (unannounced to be public) could be regarded as courageous or Machiavellian, depending upon your taste…
Perhaps the comment that JFK was courageous is related to the end of his Presidency, when he converted to lukewarm civil rights support (after pretty much supporting the opposite view in the 1950s)? Perhaps by 1963 this change in view was “courageous”, or perhaps by then it was a vote winner?
For sure, MLK was a hero of the Civil Rights movement. The Kennedy’s authorised Hoover to have his phone tapped.
Personally, I do not see JFK as a great supporter of MLK, or a particularly convincing crusader on civil rights. I suspect it is all part of the modern mythology and mystique about JFK, involving vast quantities of revisionism.
Obviously, none of the above means that JFK’s assassination was anything other than the obscenity you say.
Rgds,
*p*
Nice summary. But ‘Politics is the art of the possible’ … the saying goes, and I think that has to be applied.
(‘What can I do? I’m only the President of the United States.’)
I distrust (but don’t despise) anyone who says they want to/have to ‘change the system from within’.
It’s almost as if — I have said this elsewhere, sorry about the repetition — what one has to become to succeed in politics should actually disqualify you.
The massive mobilization of resources etc required at any time to (democratically) seize power — or land the job — is, it seems to me, a corrupting (no other word) influence.
Experienced politicians often excel at a kind of glib say-nothing patter — to be all things to all people … but that’s not the worst of it. Politicians want power in large part to reward their constituencies. Betrayals lead to expulsion and rebellion.
Kennedy’s election as POTUS was an achievement, but he didn’t land, perfectly formed in the WH, nor did he cease to owe the favours and debts he incurred on his ‘journey’. His wonderful line greeting a marginal electoral win: ‘Daddy said he wasn’t going to pay for a landslide’, displays the self-deprecating humour which was so engaging for members of the press etc.
Hoover and McCarthy were the political equivalents of a golf course’s natural hazards, and we know the tensions between the Kennedys and Hoover were palpable.
The civil rights movement, like all protest, is seen as inconvenient, but the justice of that call, so long denied with what MLK described as the ‘be patient’ ploy, demanded to be heard.
Trying to change ‘the system’ is challenging … trying to change it from outside can see you in court, charged with ‘organizing terror’ … especially when one sees protest described as a ‘crime’ (as it was this week: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/QA_Search_Surveillance_Bill.pdf )
The Kennedys, John and Bobby, may not have been perfect vessels for those reforms, and their sense of what was politically ‘possible’ may have been pessimistic, but given the soaring oratory and overt appeals to the best side of humanity they dispensed through their careers, in my view they both added a lot.
– P
ivantheterrible, you say:
“…if someone was enough of a threat to some group or groups to be murdered – i sort of tend to think they may have offered some good to mankind.
Poormastery would certainly agree in the case of Reagan or Lincoln “I hope you’re all Republicans.” (speaking to surgeons as he entered the operating room following a 1981 assassination attempt).
You continue:
“Dont see many attempts on keys life do you – or do only the supposedly morally bankrupt irish catholic guys get plugged usually.”
Nope. See previous comments.
“American politics … the game where only the good die young – the rest just provide pretentious discussion-fodder for equally pretentious people.”
Naturally, poormastery pleads guilty to pretension as charged.
I am also interested in British, NZ and Swiss politics (to name but a few), so perhaps I am a quadruplely pretentious? So be it. Yet it gets worse. I am fascinated by a wide myriad of other “pretentious” subjects – ranging from history to art to science to economics to sport…
Pretension layered upon pretension?
All well and good.
Still, at least poormastery is in the right place. I can discuss politics et al in a pretentious manner here.
If “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different”, how would you define a person who posts again and again on a forum dedicated to subjects it considers to be “pretentious”?
Curious or what!
Rgds,
*p*
I think I must be pretentious too.
Actually, the more I think about it … I have a green leather Filofax, drive a green BMW, use a Tizio angle-poise lamp, and Apple computers/tablets, and an iPhone.
Case closed.
Reaction to the pretention issue is perhaps an overreaction Pmastery. Dont always put the cap on because you like the fit.
Kennedy was a moral slopjar. Who am i to argue? Horror and shock?