Who Says Irony is Dead in American Politics?

Why, this is repleat with irony!

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer in an article about the continuing flap over John Kerry's bumbled joke which seemed to question the intelligence of the military troops in Iraq, the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, has turned this into an opportunity to impugn the character of his opponent, Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. According to the incumbent, Casey:

"...played partisan politics and read his talking points just like he has done throughout this entire campaign," Santorum said. "John Kerry gave him the talking points: Botched joke. The words out of Casey's mouth? Botched joke. Just follow the script, Bob."

"Being a United States senator is not about following the script," Santorum said.

Unh-hunh.

This coming from the Senator who thinks Bush is a great president:

SEN. SANTORUM: Absolutely. I agree with the president, as you see, a vast majority of the time. When I agree with him, I say it. And when I don’t agree with him, I, I say it, too.

MR. RUSSERT: You think he’s a great president?

SEN. SANTORUM: I think he’s been a terrific president, absolutely.

This coming from the Senator who still believes, along with Bush, Dick and Rummy, that there were WMD in Iraq at the time of the invasion, enough to constitute a serious threat to the US:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, the president has accepted the report of his two task force and said, “That the chief weapons inspector has issued his report. Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there.”

SEN. SANTORUM: Well, there were all sorts of weapons that our intelligence believed were there. They thought that they were new weapons. So far we, we did not—we have not found any new weapons. But we have found old weapons, weapons from the Iran/Iraq conflict, and we found over 500 and the report says that there were more.

This from the Senator who regularly toes the president's line over 90% of the time in the last three sessions of Congress. From Hill Monitor, a non-partisan source for records on congressional votes, Santorum voted with Bush:

95.77% of the time in the 109th Congress (2005-2006)

98.19% of the time in the 108th Congress (2004-2005) and

96.46% of the time in the 107th Congress (2003-2004).

Apparently, it's alright to toe the line if the line in question is the extremely conservative ideological line offered by the right wing president but not alright in the heat of a congressional election campaign.

God, I love America!

tags: Casey / Pennsylvania politics / Santorum / US Senate / US politics