Rick Santorum is a man who suffered an historic defeat in 2006. In my lifetime I have not witnessed an incumbent lose his senate seat so spectacularly, and Rick Santorum lost the seat in part through some spectacular missteps involving bestiality, homeschooling, taxes, and Terri Schiavo (not simultaneously), among other things. One would think that after such a monumental defeat Rcik Santorum would find a quiet place to work and get out of the limelight for a time. Not so much. Since then Mr. Santorum has been hired by think tanks and by the conservative ownership of the Philadelphia Inquirer, among others. Evidently none of these people remember as far back as 2006. Now Rick Santorum has picked up “Dating Advisor” as yet another way to earn money. I guess sending his kids to college has him working several angles. Here’s Rick giving snide advice to President Barack Obama about dating his wife, from ThinkProgress:

And you have an African-American community, particularly in the poor inner city areas, we’re looking at out of wedlock birthrates in three quarters to 75 percent (sic) of children being born out of wedlock. Marriage is an institution that’s a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males.

Here we have a president of the United States who says that marriage is cool. You have respect for your wife, and you treat her with the respect and dignity that she deserves. And she is part of this team. And it’s not just part of professional team, but it’s also part of a personal, romantic team. I think that’s all great. So I think it’s important that he keeps having his date night. [...]

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is…self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it’s with your wife.

I’m not sure at all what’s going on here. Santorum seems to praise Barack and Michelle Obama for presenting a positive image of mariage to the African American community at the same time it stereotypes with the image of a shot and a beer at a bar? Perhaps Mr. Santorum is as much of an expert on the African American community as he is an expert on bestiality and pedophilia. But, as Steve Benen of Washington Monthly notes, Santorum is being asked to bloviate on all sorts of topics lately, such as on the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, in Politico, where Santorum claims Sotomayor ignores the constitution completely and where he uses the word “elitism” to describe her, ignoring the fact that she grew up in public housing.

Perhaps it isn’t enough to say “whack job” in describing Rick Santorum. I’ll work on my vocabulary in time for his column tomorrow, where he cheats his employer yet again with an argument filled with straw men and recycled from bloviations of the past. (Yeah, my bet is that at least half of Santorum’s column tomorrow is word for word from other sources, not that the Inquirer, stupid as they were to hire Santorum, will mind.) Benen Has a good conclusion about Rick Santorum, sort of totalling up Rick’s offenses. From Washington Monthly:

I’m not sure which part of this is the most ridiculous — Santorum’s condescending attitude, his errors about African-American families, his apparent belief that he’s qualified to give dating advice to the president, or the fact that this discredited former senator continues to be a fixture at major news outlets.

The last bit isn’t surprising. First, a whole bunch of major news outlets think having a Republican in their stable makes them somehow “fair,” no matter the whackjobbery the Republican carries as baggage. Second, the Inquirer is retooling behind Republican Brian Tierney, who might be a decent Republican strategist, but is lousy at recognizing quality writers and people. After all, he also hired torture advocate John Yoo as a columnist.