The apostle of bizarre insensitivity

The apostle of bizarre insensitivity
By Thomas Oliphant
Boston Globe
July 17, 2005

WASHINGTON

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IN THE END, I've decided, after a decade of absurdities, Rick Santorum is not funny, just weird.
The Pennsylvania senator's latest outburst of cruel insensitivity -- imagining some tie between the ''culture" of Boston and the behavior of priest-rapists -- is garden variety demagoguery.
I'm glad he has been denounced and called to account by Senator Edward Kennedy and Representatives Ed Markey and Barney Frank, but I worry that the condemnation of Santorum's bizarre behavior may elevate his comments to a level of seriousness that is not merited.
The same concern should prompt decent people everywhere to battle against the constant attempts by President Bush and his architect, Karl Rove, to politicize the terrorist attacks on this country nearly four years ago. Making preposterous assertions about how those of differing ideologies and politics reacted trivializes the loss of those whose family members and other loved ones perished in the attacks. Given the fresh nature of these wounds, this kind of gutter politics is cruel....