Measure of the man

On Oct. 26, 1967, future Republican senator Rick Santorum was a 9-year-old kid busy playing "Cowboys & Indians" in rural Pennsylvania. On that same date, future Republican senator John McCain ejected from his burning A-4E Skyhawk over North Vietnam. Santorum spent the next five years becoming a popular teenager. McCain spent the same period being beaten and tortured as a POW. His interrogation became so severe at one point that McCain attempted suicide to escape further injury and pain. Finally broken in body (but not spirit), McCain finally "confessed" and gave his captors the names of the pilots in his squadron. Strangely, they were identical to names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line. Today, McCain is a US senator who recently condemned torture of any sort for any reason. Santorum is an ex-senator running for president who supports torturing America's wartime enemies. "I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative," Santorum said on Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday. Yes, Rick, they sure do. Ask McCain. He could have stopped there. But Santorum - who never served in the military or faced physical adversity - continued with this appalling declaration: "[John McCain] doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works." So, the man who can no longer raise his arms above his shoulders due in part to torture doesn't know how torture works. McCain's politics makes me nauseous. His manhood in captivity made me proud. Santorum's politics also makes me nauseous. But his manhood is nonexistent. In my book, that makes Santorum nauseating in his entirety.