I don’t even know what to say about this. Better to get it out now, I guess.
“Satan has his sights on the United States of America!” Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has declared.
“Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”
Not that I entirely disagree with the premise that we have a problem with our culture. But I just don’t know how this will fly with the average voter. Rush Limbaugh weighed in, comparing the reaction to these statements made by Santorum a few years ago to how Hugo Chavez calling George W. Bush “Satan” was received by the media. I don’t know if that really helps matters.
Allahupundit has more.
For some reason this reminds me of Dana Carvey as the Church Lady.
Update: Linked by Politico – thanks!
Tags: Church Lady, Dana Carvey, Rick Santorum, satan
I’d say the man just shot himself in the foot, with a big gun, possible a double barrel twelve gauge.
Not because he is wrong, but because the American people will not stand for being slapped in the face with the truth so hard. How dare a frontrunner in an election point out that they, the people, are part of the problem. Any fool can see that it’s the other guy that is the problem.
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I’m with you on this one, akaawm. I’m hoping the wound isn’t as bad as you think. LC points out the SNL “Church Lady” skits and again, back in those years even before the internet it was such a successful secular progressive meme that people joked and mocked it at home and work. Yes, it was truly funny but that’s what made it so effective. Now, over time as a nation, the left has got American culture to buy into evil as a non-PC, fictitious joke and as you say, it has become uncomfortable as a “slap in the face” discussion of reality. If evil has been reduced to a fictitious joke, so has God because as it’s been said, “the biggest believer in God is Satan“.
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What is sad is this was from a speech he was giving at a Catholic University back in 2008…but don’t count on the mainstream media to point that little detail out.
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What does where the speech was given have to do w/ anything? Santorum’s running for the American Presidency, not the Papacy.
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Umm, ok, being at a Catholic university, it’s pretty safe to say the majority of who he was speaking to is very religous. But more importantly than “where”, is the matter of WHEN he gave it. In 2008 he wasn’t running for the American Presidency, that speech had nothing to do with him running for President. If he had given that speech yesterday as an actual “campaign speech” that would be a different story all together.
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I don’t know about you – but I’m not interested in having a president who claims that Satan is attacking America.
Talk like that makes me very uncomfortable.
Us humans just don’t need the devil anywhere around to indulge in those “great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality”.
Having a basically religious man as president is one thing. It demonstrates – at the very least – he has some sort of a moral and ethical foundation. Having a religious fanatic in charge who sees devils and demons everywhere is quite another.
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Don’t throw the term fanatic out so callously without first knowing what the word means and what the context of the speech was about.
If you like peanutbutter and eat it twice a year, does that make you a pb fanatic? Maybe in MY book it does. Doesn’t seem fair all of a sudden does it?
We have become so secular (even on the right) that any mention of anything religous is seen as some form of fanaticism. And that is exactly what the lib/socialist want. Seperate us from our religion and God to take away our moral foundation. Without that foundation, we have no conservative cause.
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I watched the video in question.
The man appeared very sincere when he talked of Satan taking over the “Great institutions of America”. It appeared to me that he truly believes there is a genuine entity of great evil out there, stalking our nation, causing all our grief and misery. He gives far too much credit to this invisinle entity for our problems, when most of our troubles we generate all by ourselves, without any prodding from some supposedly fallen angel.
We do not need some powerful but unseen entity to get us to do evil things. The ability to do that is already within us, no help needed. What we do need help with is our efforts to stay good.
To blame Satan, or the Devil, or Beezlebub, or whoever for our misdeeds is a giant human cop-out. “the devil made me do it” is an flimsy excuse, not a valid reason.
If Santorum believes Satan is behind all our troubles, he may also believe that praying will get us out of them. No doubt there has been countless millions -billions – of prayers given already… for world peace, the end of hunger, for prosperity, for whatever. A few more led by Santorum will not make much difference. That means – as president – he may not commit sufficient time and resources to catch and punish the real human evildoers skulking about, instead depending on what amounts to a – so far – totally ineffective strategy. In that respect, he would be a far worse president than Jimmy Carter was.
If he doesn’t believe that, then he’s just another lying politcian, saying whatever it takes to get votes.
I’m not saying that prayer doesn’t help, it does. But that help comes in the form of making the person doing the praying feel better, making them feel as if they have actually done something about a real problem when they really haven’t.
Many people, apparantly you also, think that fanatic is a negative word. It is not. It is merely a word that defines a person who has a fixed set of opinions or beliefs that is not open to change, those opinions or beliefs supported by intense enthusiasm and uncritical devotion.
It’s the root word for “fan”.
Santorum is a religious fanatic, period. If you do not like the word in the context I use it, too bad. Time for you to learn what it means.
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Question: Does Barack Obama believe in Satan?
Obama is a Christian, isn’t he? And Christians believe in Satan.
Having come from Jeremiah Wright’s church, Obama might be inclined to believe in a Satan embodied by the United States of America, but that still counts, right?
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When Salman Rushdie broke on the scene in the late 1980s, he was hailed a victor by the liberal media for his book, The Satanic Verses. His novel was reviled by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and he fled to the west to avoid Iranian death squads! He was a darling of the western press.
Now, a video that was shot at a catholic church is being touted as the death knell of Rick Santorum? By November, I’m sure that the video will not have the same effect. This will be a small stone in a big pond!
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When Salman Rushdie broke on the scene in the late 1980s, he was hailed a victor by the liberal media for his book, The Satanic Verses. His novel was reviled by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and he fled to the west to avoid Iranian death squads! He was a darling of the western press.
Now, a video that was shot at a catholic church is being touted as the death knell of Rick Santorum? By November, I’m sure that the video will not have the same effect. This will be a small stone in a big pond!
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Somehow, that is no longer the craziest Santorum headline
“Santorum in 95: ‘I Was Basically Pro-Choice All My Life, Until I Ran For Congress”
So about as deeply held as when you wear a tis to a job interview.
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The internet really should give out prizes for misspelling 3 letter words. Tie. Nailed it.
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He was speaking before students in a Catholic university, for crying out loud. It’s really sad when we’re afraid to even mention the word Satan. The liberals have nerve to criticize anything Santorum says about Satan. At least he’s saying it about Satan and not about America as Wright did and O listened to for twenty years.
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