Rick Santorum, so not ready for prime time. (Sarah Conard/Reuters)
In case you missed it, Rick Santorum picked up the
bullhorn this weekend. Campaigning in Ohio Saturday,
Santorum said that President Obama's agenda stems from a "phony theology."
At another stop in Ohio on Saturday, Mr. Santorum waded into what he called the “phony theology” of Mr. Obama’s agenda.
“It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,” he said. “But no less a theology.”
In later comments to reporters, Mr. Santorum said while there are “a lot of different stripes” of Christianity, he believes that “if the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.”
“I’m just saying he’s imposing his values on the church, and I think that’s wrong,” he said, adding that he did not believe Mr. Obama was less of a Christian for doing so.
This was after a long tirade at an earlier stop about the evils of public education, bemoaning the fact that American presidents no longer home-school their children. With the 19th century obviously weighing heavily on his brain, the rest of the weekend Santorum struggled to explain what he meant when he called Obama an inauthentic Christian, and then the crazy really flew and Santorum flailed. Here's a snippet from his interview on
Face the Nation yesterday.
BOB SCHIEFFER: So, Senator, I've got to ask you. What—what in the world were you talking about, Sir?
RICK SANTORUM: Well, I was talking about the—the radical environmentalists. That's why I was talking about energy, this—this idea that—that man is—is not—is here to serve the Earth as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth. And I think that is a— a— is a phony ideal. I don't believe that that's what— that's what we're here to do. That— we— that— that man is here to— to use the resources and use them wisely, to care for the Earth, to be a steward of the Earth. But we're not here to serve the Earth. The Earth is not the objective. Man is the objective. And-- and I think a lot of radical— a— a— a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down.
To his credit, Bob Scheiffer pushed back, asking essentially what in the hell radical environmentalists had to do with Obama, and Santorum fell back on Obama's world view:
RICK SANTORUM: No, I wasn't suggesting that President's not a Christian. I accept the fact that the President is a Christian. I— I just said that when you have a— a-- a world view that-- that elevates the Earth above man and— and— and says that, you know, we can't take those resources because we're going to harm the Earth by— by things that are— that— that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, that politicization of the whole global warming debate, I mean, this is just all— all— all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government. And— and it's not questioning the President's beliefs in— in Christianity. I'm talking about, you know, his— the— the belief that— that man is— should be in charge of the earth and should have— [...]
President Obama, he says, has a world view in which "the way he approaches problems in this country and I think they're— they're different than how most people do in America." In other words, the same old Kenyan-Muslim-socialist schtick, but presented in such a bumbling manner that even Bob Scheiffer was compelled to ask about it.
