E.J. Dionne on Lil Rick

From the Washington Post:

Sen. Rick Santorum wanted to talk.

His purpose, he said over breakfast earlier this week in the Senate dining room, was to "tell the other side of the story" about his record, which his foes use to cast him as -- these are his words -- "a mean-spirited, hard-right country club Republican."

Well I have no idea whether he's a member of a country club, but the rest is about right.

Poverty is a big deal to him, Santorum explained, because "if you want me to be honest, I'm a Catholic." He added: "How many times did the nuns beat into your brains: the poor, the poor, the poor, the poor?"

This coming from a guy who lives in a half million dollar house.

Santorum is nothing if not shrewd. Running with the 1994 conservative tide, he won his seat from then-incumbent Harris Wofford after characterizing AmeriCorps, the national service initiative and a Wofford legislative monument, as a program "for hippie kids to stand around a campfire and sing 'Kumbaya' at taxpayers' expense." (Santorum later became an AmeriCorps supporter.) With the tide running the other way 12 years later, Santorum is eager to cast himself as a champion of social justice.

So he flip-flopped on AmeriCorps. But here's the last paragraph. It's a doozy:

If Rick Santorum wants you to look at his record in a way that makes him a paladin for the poor and if Dennis Hastert wants you to know that he's suspicious of the oil companies, the political weather is changing. When one side starts making the other side's argument, you don't need to be a pollster to know which belief system is in the ascendancy.[emphasis added]

At the very least we know which belief system RICK thinks is in the ascendancy.

Rick Santorum - flip flopper when he needs your support.