RICK SANTORUM: AMERICAN TALIBAN

Rick Santorum has crossed the line of decency and common sense, indeed sanity itself, and should withdraw from the Presidential race.

His attacks on President Obama's faith, his attacks on public education, his attacks on women's reproductive health, his attacks on urgently needed environmental programs, his call for the bombing of Iran all stem from his extremist religious beliefs that have no place in American politics. He represents the most dangerous assault on our political process since Senator Joe McCarthy over sixty years ago and Senator McCarthy never sought the Presidency. Santorum mirrors the mindless mindset of Taliban-style fusion of religion with politics that allows no room for debate, no room for moral equivalency, no sympathy for anyone or anything that doesn't mesh with his dominionist view of leadership.

We progressives cannot achieve Santorum's withdrawal from the race. Sensible and secular-minded and sane Republicans need to conduct an intervention with him to facilitate the end of his campaign. If he does withdraw, he is more than welcome to stay here. For his own peace of mind, he may want to move to a society that relishes and thrives on religious intolerance and totalitarian principles.

CONGRESSMAN CULTURE WARS RIDES AGAIN

My Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6th), never fails to pick up a culture war issue to generate support from his extreme conservative base. It happened again this week when he spoke on the House floor and sent his latest email blast to constituents entitled "Religious freedom".

But in doing so, he failed again to address the real issue. In this case it is the manufactured Republican assault on the health of 700,000 employees of Catholic hospitals and schools through their support of church efforts to deny them sensible and mainstream reproductive health care services. These 700,000 folks are mostly far removed from Congressman Roskam's privileged economic status. They live paycheck to paycheck and their need for these reproductive services is essential for their physical, psychological and economic well being. They work for Catholic institutions providing critical services to the "commons" in both health and education which brings them in excess of $42 billion from the government for medical services alone. Providing for the commons and participating in resulting government subsidies brings responsibilities; in this case to give those employees the same heath care protectionsas employees in purely secular institutions.

But the President, who doesn't play the culture war game, wisely ended this call to extremism Roskam supports by taking the church out of the equation. He decided that the insurance companies rather than the churches will pay for these services. The needy will get their critically needed hearth care; the churches will not have to pay for services some feel violates their moral beliefs; and the insurance companies will save many times the cost of these services in offsets from less pregnancies, abortions and related medical conditions. Oh yes, the church can still preach the evils of contraception to their faithful, of which 98% plus will ponder and say: "No thanks".

Sadly, Congressman Roskam and his fellow culture warriors are not satisfied. They ignore the elevation of everyones' interests and indeed the elevation of society as a whole to promote their political agenda. Is it just a coincidence that these attacks are increasing now that the economy is clearly improving and consumer confidence is returning due to 23 straight months of private sector job growth? Roskam's frivolous charges of religious intolerance reminds me of comedian Don Adams of "Get Smart" fame. Adams had a bit about a defense attorney desperately trying to defend an indefensible client. The Adams character blurts out: "Its easy for the prosecuting attorney to attack my client so effectively.....he's got proof".