Senator Santorum DEFENDS his stand on Terri Schiavo!

Hardly surprising. But unintentionally funny, doncha think?

We've written on Senator Santorum's part in this tragedy before.

Here's where Rick asserted the Congress' authority to order Judge Whittemore's court to simply start over on the Schiavo case. The thing that seemed to have escaped our young friend's mind is that there's two hundred years of Constitutional tradition that says there's this thing called a "separation of powers." Congress lacks the authority to do any such thing.

Here's where we point out that while our Junior Senator cancelled a public appearance (discussing Bush's proposed Social Security phase-out no less) "out of respect" for the Schiavo family, he never the less made it to a fundraiser where he netted a cool quarter million dollars.

Here's what he says in the P-G:

Regardless of what his critics say, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum insists he did the right thing by visiting brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in Florida before she died March 31.

In a visit to the state Capitol yesterday, Santorum said the autopsy of Schiavo, which came out this week, hasn't caused him to regret or second-guess his actions.

And:

"I absolutely do not regret going there," said Santorum, a conservative Republican who faces a difficult race for a third term next year.

"I stood up for what I believe was right in defending a disabled person from being executed."

No regrets. Looks like this article is one big appeal to Rick's religious base. He says later on::

"Had I not gone down there, there would have been some who would have criticized me for not going," said Santorum, who likely will face a re-election challenge next year from Democratic state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr.

What about critics who complained that he was engaged in a political show by visiting Schiavo?

"Oh yeah, that was a great political show, to go down there when the polls were showing that [getting involved with Schiavo] was something the Congress shouldn't have done," he replied, somewhat testily.

Notice what he's doing here? Ponder for a minute the two phrases, "there would have been some who would have criticized me for not going" and then the "critics who complained that he was engaged in a political show." Obviously these are two distinct groups of critics, no? So our Rick is asserting that he'll suffer through the criticisms from those who said he shouldn't have gone down to Florida in order to avoid the criticisms from those who would have said that he should have if he didn't (no mention, of course, of the quarter million dollar pay off).

Any guess on which group of critics encompases Pennsylvania's conservative religious community?

And notice the moral/political framing going on. Those who criticised him did so because it was a "political show" while he says he went down there to defend what he believes in.

Again not a peep about the political fundraiser.

The barely-beneath-the-radar message for Pennsylania's religious conservatives: "I'm with you on this. I'll suffer the petty political bickering to stand with you on this. It's gonna be a tough fight against those who want to execute the disabled."

Not a poltical show, huh?