What Was Santorum Thinking?

THERE WAS TRENT LOTT on one side, and now Rick Santorum on the other. Like bookends, they seem to frame the war with Iraq–each subject to an attack in which an offhand comment is taken by opponents for a steed and ridden to death with spurs. Some commentators (and many, many politicians) hoped that in the high seriousness of a nation at war this trend in public discourse would wither away. But it clearly hasn’t. Welcome home, boys. Politics is back.

There remains, of course, the question of whether the attacks on Santorum are going to succeed in driving him from his leadership position in the Senate, as they rightly did succeed with Lott. In Santorum’s case, that would be undeserved.