So Many Republican Hypocrites, So Little Time

BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week: Rick Santorum

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Perhaps Rick Santorum's most noteworthy moment of last year was when he tastelessly told an aghast female Associated Press reporter that gay marriage would lead to man/dog love. Santorum is one sick puppy (all puns intended) whose hypocrisy -- and psychosis -- qualified him to be the third ranking Republican leader in the Senate.

I mean here's a guy who charged a school district in Pennsylvania -- the state he nominally represents -- for home schooling his kids in Virginia, where he actually lives with his family. The school district finally figured out the scam and cut off Rick's little taxpayer-funded extra income.

Then there's Rick the flaming fighter against "frivolous" malpractice suits. Except in 1999, Santorum's wife sued her chiropractor. She claimed that he caused her permanent back pain and was awarded $350,000. Rick's response to the hypocrisy was standard operating procedure for the Grand Hypocrisy Party: "The court proceedings are a personal family matter," Santorum said. BuzzFlash translation: "I can sue for malpractice, but you peons can't!"

And on the Schiavo case, "Man on Dog" Santorum wants to bring federal judges "to justice" for "defying Congress" and not forcing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to be re-inserted. "What we asked for in the Congress was a new finding of fact," Santorum said. "And this judge in this district ignored it, snubbed his nose at Congress, I think against the law. I think he should be held accountable for it."

So Santorum is saying that judges should alter the truth to meet the political goals of the radical right wing that he represents.

But one conservative federal judge vigorously disagreed with Santorum. The judge is, in fact, a man considered by many legal scholars as the most conservative judge on the federal Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr.

According to Knight Ridder newspapers:

...in Wednesday's 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to deny a rehearing to Schiavo's parents, Birch went out of his way to castigate Bush and congressional Republicans for acting "in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for governance of a free people - our Constitution."

Birch said he couldn't countenance Congress' attempt to "rob" federal courts of the discretion they're given in the Constitution. Noting that it had become popular among "some members of society, including some members of Congress," to denounce "activist judges," or those who substitute their personal opinions for constitutional imperatives, Birch said lawmakers embarked on their own form of unconstitutional activism.

Ouch, and on top of that, Republican-appointed judges all along the way turned back the radical religious jihad efforts to politicize and distort the facts of the case. But Rick is a charlatan, not a judge who considers the merits of an appeal and tries to make decisions based on law and justice.

A law professor quoted in the article on Judge Birch understands Santorum quite well: "In the political realm [the law professor observes], 'repeated instances of hypocrisy can become consistency.'"

And if there's ever a finer example of "repeated instances of hypocrisy," one need look no further than Republican Rick Santorum, the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Until next week, remember our motto at BuzzFlash.com: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.