All of us should be alarmed by Rick Santorum’s views. He is ignorant about history. For example, Thomas Jefferson argued for having the Feds in education during his 1806 State of the Union address. The public high school I attended took more of an interest in athletics than it did academics, but the skills I learned there enabled me to compete with others, and complete the degree requirements, at DePauw University.

   Santorum chose to home-school his children. Home-schooling might work if at least one parent is available for the task. Chris Mathews (I am not a fan but he made a valid point) last night pointed out that many households are one-parent households. Our economy is such (thanks to (1) the Bush tax cuts (2) our fighting two wars at once started by Bush but continued by Obama and 3) Republican opposition to the full recovery package proposed by Obama shortly after he took office) that home-schooling is not feasible for many households. If some parents think they can obtain money from vouchers to "home school" their kids, they’ll cash in the vouchers, put their kids to work in menial jobs, take vacays to Florida or visit a casino, and increase the probability that their children will not make meaningful contributions to society.

   Santorum opposes birth control. Our government, for 30 years, has emphasized use of condoms to limit the spread of AIDS. When I was in college, birth control was commonplace because (1) nearly everyone wanted to get laid and (2) people did not yet want kids. The population of this planet has exploded. There are over seven billion human beings here. President Obama does not pursue a "phony theology" when he says we must preserve the planet. Even Ronald Reagan’s disaster of a Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, said in February 1981 that we have to be stewards of the environment for present and future generations. Santorum says the notion we should be careful with our resources is going to short ourselves today.

   Santorum’s attitudes toward women are appalling. I will stop here to judge him the way in which a lot of sexist men view female politicians. Polling figures, shortly after the 208 Republican National Convention, showed Sarah Palin attracted a lot of male voters. A few months ago several prominent Republican women were touted as "hotter" than their Democratic counterparts.

   Here is my assessment of Rick Santorum that employs the same criteria I only can imagine the Palin guys used in 2008.

.  Santorum dresses badly. (My everyday wardrobe of jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers is not GQ, but I wear presentable suits to appear in court.) Sweater vests were in vogue in small pockets of the country for a short time that coincided with the transcendence of  leisure suits.

   And, it has been difficult to miss when he is filmed in profile, but Santorum has a big butt. He might have eschewed good diet because of antipathy for Michelle Obama. Maybe his hind quarters owe their size to genetics. Nonetheless he has an ass as big as his presidential aspirations.  

   The best that most commentators have said about Rick Santorum is that he might be extreme in his views, but at least he believes what he says and is consistent and, besides, he’s not seriously going to obtain the Republican nomination, much less the presidency.

   1) Let’s get out of the way the quote, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, that everyone mishandles. Emerson did not say consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Without consistency—"constant adherence to the same principles, course, etc.’‘’" American College Dictionary, 1962 ed., p. 258—we could not have language or mathematics. Emerson said foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

   2) That Santorum is consistent and has beliefs is not in itself admirable. The beliefs with which he is consistent are important to consider. This brings me to his wimpish comparion of President Obama to that Austrian corporal with one testicle who set the world onto the path of war in 1939, Adolf Hitler. Santorum began the nazification of this particular area, so let’s follow through.

   I will not dispute that Santorum believes what he says or that his beliefs are sincere.  The Nazis were not allegories. Theirs was a political party on the radical fringe of German politics in the early 1920s. The full (anglicized) name was the National Socialist German Workers Party. The Treaty of Versailles, on the heels of the economic calamity caused by World War I, ravaged Germany. [Note: Here, other bloggers would insert a photograph of Germans with wheelbarrows full of currency on the way to market to buy a loaf of bread.)  The Kaiser had abdicated. Germany’s national identity was one of shame. Vacuum was left where once had been a nation-state.

   A lot of Americans believe this is the point at which Adolf Hitler entered the picture and wrested control of Germany for the benefit of his Nazi Party. That is an inaccurate assessment. Germany’s economy rebounded in the mid-1920s. Hitler’s party polled low numbers. As late as 1928, the Nazis only polled 2.6% in elections for the Reichstag, Germany’s national legislative body.  Evans, The Coming of the Reich, 2003, p. 446.  By March 1933, those numbers had risen to 43.9%.  Id.   

   Nazification of discourse—and by this, I mean comparing one or more sides in an argument to Nazis—is a matter I addressed in this blog a couple of months ago. I do not like it. But Santorum should not have picked it up. The allusion too easily can be flipped on him.

   The only other matter I would address would be the size of Hitler’s butt. He always wore those riding trousers that flared out. It’s tough to say how big it was. His half-sister baked a lot of pastries for him at the Bergof, yet Hitler was a vegetarian. If Adam Sandler’s movie "Little Nicky" has any credence about what happened to Hitler—everyday at 4 p.m., Satan shoves a pineapple up Hitler’s ass—then the orifice itself must be rather large by now.

   I shall however concede one point. I never saw a photograph of Hitler in a sweater vest—or a leisure suit.