ROFLMAO!!! you need to add more nuts to the GOP 2012 freakshow.

This is the freak who took his dead child home from the hospital, to interact with his children, isn't he?
SANTORUM 2012? REALLY?

There was a fair amount of talk in, say, 2005, that Sen. Rick Santorum (R) was eyeing the 2008 presidential race. It was hard to take the scuttlebutt seriously, but Santorum was quietly making some behind-the-scenes moves in that direction.
The talk came to an abrupt halt when Santorum, whose most notable Senate achievement was an interview in which he compared gay couples to "man-on-dog" relations, lost his re-election bid by a humiliating 18 points. The idea of Santorum having national ambitions was obviously silly.
And yet, here we are.
Add former Sen. Rick Santorum to the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates.
POLITICO has learned Santorum will visit first-in-the-nation Iowa this fall for a series of appearances before the sort of conservative activists who dominate the state GOP's key presidential caucuses.
The Pennsylvanian, who lost his 2006 reelection bid, will visit Iowa on October 1, appearing on a Des Moines radio talk show and speaking to a luncheon and workshop of Iowa's Right to Life group before heading east to Dubuque, where he'll headline a fundraiser for the conservative America's Future Fund PAC and then speak about the future of the GOP to a public audience in the Mississippi River city. LinkHere

THE PENANCE HAS NOT BEEN PAID

Following up on this item from yesterday, I had an interesting conversation via email yesterday with Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. Bruce made a point that really resonated with me, and he was gracious enough to allow me to republish it here.
I believe that political parties should do penance for their mistakes and just losing power is not enough. Part of that involves understanding why those mistakes were made and how to prevent them from happening again. Republicans, however, have done no penance. They just pretend that they did nothing wrong. But until they do penance they don't deserve any credibility and should be ignored until they do. That's what my attacks on Bush are all about. I want Republicans to admit they were wrong about him, accept blame for his mistakes, and take some meaningful action to keep them from happening again. Bush should be treated as a pariah, as Richard Nixon was for many years until he rebuilt his credibility by more or less coming clean about Watergate with David Frost and writing a number of thoughtful books.
One reason this isn't happening is because the media don't treat Republicans as if they are discredited. On the contrary, they often seem to be treated as if they have more credibility than the administration. Just look at the silly issue of death panels. The media should have laughed it out the window, ridiculed it or at least ignored it once it was determined that there was no basis to the charge. Instead, those making the most outlandish charges are treated with deference and respect, while those that actually have credibility on the subject are treated as equals at best and often with deep skepticism, as if they are the ones with an ax to grind.
I am truly baffled by this situation, as I'm sure you are.
As regular readers may imagine, I find this overwhelmingly persuasive. Bush/Cheney policies failed so spectacularly, Republican candidates and officeholders are generally reluctant to associate themselves with the tarnished name of the previous administration. But Bush/Cheney policies are still those of the contemporary Republican Party. Nothing has changed. Failure and defeat haven't chastened the GOP at all, and if given a chance to govern again, Republican leaders are quite anxious to return to the exact same agenda they embraced when they were in the majority.
And the political mainstream seems to think this is sane. LinkHere