MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Rick Santorum, Soda Jerk for restoring the Middle Ages (Photo: DonkeyHotey)He's back. Little Ricky "Man-on-Dog" Santorum is seriously assembling a run for president in 2016 according to the National Journal.

Going back to May of 2000 when BuzzFlash first began posting on the Internet, we've covered a lot of right wing outsized characters. In fact, there were so many that we began a separate site (since ceased publishing): GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Santorum falls more into the "deranged zealot who looks like a big box office supply store manager" type, but he still fits into that broad category of religious zealots who get themselves confused with their stated belief that Jesus is the Son of God while their actual belief is that they are the Son(s) of God.

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I don't know that -- if elected -- Santorum would deliver his Inaugural Address tied to a cross, but it would be something born of a crazed religious fanaticism such as he possesses. This is the age of television imagery -- and he would be our first unctuously smarmy evangelist president, so should his hypothetical (in his own mind) Inauguration occur, expect Creationist television images that would make the Olympics' coverage look like its broadcast from a garage.

Just remember that Santorum has stated thousands of self-righteous proclamations of religious authoritarianism. His sobriquet "man on dog" came about when he gave an interview a few years back to a young wire reporter. In it, he defended his homophobic stances by stating that any acceptance of gays would lead to toleration of "man on dog" sex and the like. The wire reporter was apparenty so shocked that she asked him to confirm that he had just said "man on dog."

Of course, actions beat words. So you can't beat Santorum in the gruesome department when you consider that he and his wife brought home a miscarried dead fetus to be cuddled by their other children. Wonkette.com describes the incident (in this 2011 article):

Santorum has his very own fetus story, but unlike Barbara Bush, when his wife miscarried in 1996, they didn’t stick the thing in a jar and put it on display. Santorum wrapped the dead fetus in a blanket, took it out of the hospital, and “spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel [the fetus] with his three siblings.” Sure, a miscarriage is a sad and rather strange experience for anyone to suffer, but, uh: “They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.” That should be a cute family album to show primary voters! What kind of clothes did they dress it up in? Did they make the fetus the altar boy?

Wonkette adds several details, including that Santorum and his wife wrote and published a book of letters to their dead fetus -- and that they gave an interview to the Washington Post about it, complete with Rick showing photos of him holding the dead fetus.

It is true that people who experience traumatic losses at birth must be allowed the privilege of handling grief as they see fit, but the Santorums appeared to be more interested in promoting this private loss into a public histrionic and political action. In short, it appears more ghoulishly opportunistic -- because of their public boasting -- than a discrete grieving process for the family.

Of course, Rick Santorum stays true to the general right wing fundamentalist rule of thumb: all life is sacred from conception until a person is born poor and in need of assistance. Santorum opposes everything from income aid to food stamps to any government program that values life by helping those with the least resources. His view of the alleged favor of God for the unborn does not extend to life after birth.

Santorum is one of those politicians, such as Sarah Palin, who views the US as a Christian theocracy.

Moreover, in the paternalistic authoritarian model of government that George Lakoff identifies as characterizing the right wing, particularly the religious zealots, Santorum views our lives as sacrificial offerings to a supernatural power (i.e., the Christian God). We are created and exist, he argues, by and for the will of God. Our only personal will power is to accept that theocratic divinity -- or end up in Hell.

Despite all this baggage as a candidate to become president of a secular democracy, the National Journal indicates Santorum is ready to run:

Those close to Santorum also point to Patriot Voices, a political advocacy organization he created after his exit from the 2012 primaries, as a kind of campaign-in-waiting. The group, according to an adviser, has roughly 350 chapters of volunteers. And as CEO of the Dallas-based EchoLight Studios, a film company, Santorum has also spent a lot of time in Texas—which, as one adviser knowingly put it, is the “ATM of GOP politics...

If he runs, as many of those close to him expect he will, he’ll start off yet again as the underdog

Maybe, we misread the National Journal. Maybe it said that Santorum will "start off yet again as [man on] dog."