Pair of Jokers

The Republican Party in Pennsylvania has a lot to answer for. Just for example, the senior Senator from PA, Arlen Specter, declared that the repeal of habeas corpus rights in the President's torture bill was "patently unconstitutional on its face"...shortly before Specter voted for the bill. Then there is Representative Don Sherwood, who is basing his re-election campaign on family values and not choking his mistress.

But for consistent, unadulterated idiocy it would be hard to beat Sen. Rick Santorum and Congressman Curt Weldon. They are the jokers in the Republican pack.

Last week Santorum justified his support for continuing the war in Iraq along the very same lines that have failed until now, by adapting (some might say, 'mangling') the President's idiotic mantra "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here."

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the "Eye of Mordor" has instead been drawn to Iraq.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic, "Lord of the Rings," to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

"It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.," he continued. "You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

Had his audience been children, this analogy might have made some sort of sense. But in fact Santorum was speaking to the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times.

Asked whether he thinks U.S. troops will be in Iraq a half-century later, as they still are in Germany, Santorum said "potentially."

Because in the early 20th century, after all, four decades of British occupation of Iraq went so swimmingly.

Turning to crazy Curt Weldon, his latest intergalactic postcard from Planet Zorgon X charges that his Democratic challenger was behind the recent FBI raid of the offices of his daughter and of a close political supporter.

McClatchy Newspapers broke the story Friday of a federal investigation into whether Weldon had a role in his daughter Karen and political adviser Charles Sexton obtaining nearly $1 million worth of lobbying contracts. While his staff initially denied the reports and threatened the newspaper chain with a lawsuit, FBI agents raided the homes of Sexton and Karen Weldon, their business office, and two locations in Floridathree days later.

Weldon has charged that the investigation was timed to inflict maximum damage on his re-election campaign. Speaking to reporters after a House Aviation Subcommittee meeting Wednesday afternoon, he said the retired FBI agent, Gregory Auld, confirmed the night before that a Sestak worker "was bragging that three weeks ago they knew this was going to come down."

"That, to me, is absolutely outrageous," Weldon said. "If that occurred, it means that someone in the Justice Department was coordinating whatever was happening with a political campaign."

Except it didn’t happen, according to Auld, who told an entirely different story.

The only question is whether Weldon is retreating into fantasy, as the noose tightens around his wretched neck, or whether he has always lived there.