Late Sunday, WorldNutDaily announced that Rick Santorum has joined it as a weekly commentator. Considering that Santorum is already making noises about running for president in 2016, you'd think WND would be the last place he'd want to hang around.
After all, if you were a swing voter, would you want to vote for a guy associated with a site that trolls in scurrilous and completely debunked nonsense about President Obama's faith and birthplace and gives space to writers who think liberalism is treasonous by definition and have embraced secessionism? Somehow, I doubt it. But then again, we are talking about people who think the reason they've had their heads handed to them in three of the last four general elections (2006, 2008 and 2012) is because they don't have enough Michele Bachmann and Steve King clones in their caucus.
People for the American Way has an admittedly incomplete list of some of the loonier stuff put out by WND here. Keep it on file in case Mr. Man-on-Dog does decide to throw his hat into the ring in 2016.
Santorum's first column for WND was a ham-handed attack on the UN treaty on the rights of the disabled, which was defeated earlier today after all but nine Republicans refused to support it.
The most offensive provision is found in Section 7 of the treaty dealing specifically with children with disabilities. That section reads:
“In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
“The best interest of the child” standard is lifted out of a controversial provision contained in the 1989 treaty called the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. That treaty was never ratified in large part because of this provision.
“The best interest of the child” standard may sound like it protects children, but what it does is put the government, acting under U.N. authority, in the position to determine for all children with disabilities what is best for them. That is counter to the current state of the law in this country which puts parents – not the government – in that position of determining what is in their child’s best interest. Under the laws of our country, parents lose that right only if the state, through the judicial process, determines that the parents are unfit to make that decision.
In the case of our 4-year-old daughter, Bella, who has Trisomy 18, a condition that the medical literature says is “incompatible with life,” would her “best interest” be that she be allowed to die? Some would undoubtedly say so.
So if the state, and not Karen and I, would have the final word on what is in the best interest of a child like Bella, what chance would a parent have to get appropriate care in the days of increasingly government-funded medical care?
Oh noes, the death panels again! Never mind that the only reason Bella is still alive is because the Santorums are rich enough to afford the care she needs. The whole reason that the medical literature says trisomy is not compatible with life is that most of babies who have it end up stillborn, and 99 percent of them don't live past age nine.
So Santorum is using his daughter as a political prop, again. Sounds like he and WND are made for each other.