I laughed so hard that it hurt. Doesn't this jerk live in Virginia, now?
We don't want him in Pennsylvania. And, for Fox News to hire him.
Whew! They must really be desperate.

Santorum signs on with Ethics and Public Policy Center

Ousted Republican Senator will head up a new program called "America's
Enemies"
In one of those "how can you miss them if they don't go away" stories,
Senator Rick Santorum's resounding defeat in November's election has not
sent him scurrying back home to Pennsylvania; Instead, Santorum will be
staying in the nation's capital to head up a new program at the Ethics and
Public Policy Center called "America's Enemies."

Set up some 30 years ago "to apply moral principles derived from
Christianity and Judaism to public policy issues," the Center "is strongly,
but not exclusively, associated with conservative Catholic intellectuals,"
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has pointed out.

Not nearly as star-studded, headline-grabbing, or politically potent
as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or the Family
Research Council, nevertheless, The Ethics and Public Policy Center has
carved out its own special niche amongst the beltway's right wing think
tanks and lobbying groups.




Ernest Lefever and the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Originally established at Georgetown University in 1976, the EPPC was the
brainchild of Ernest W. Lefever. According to "American Conservatism: An
Encyclopedia" -- published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute --
during the Lefever era, which coincided with the rise of Ronald Reagan, the
think tank "achieved prominent visibility" and was "hailed as one of the
eleven 'bastions of neoconservatism' in the United States in the national
media."

Early on, Lefever expressed his concern that "U.S. domestic and
multinational firms" were "increasingly under siege at home and abroad." He
claimed that they were "accused of producing shoddy and unsafe products,
fouling the environment, robbing future generations, wielding enormous
power, repressing peoples in the third world, and generally of being
insensitive to human needs." Lefever determined that the Center was
strategically placed "to respond more directly to ideological critics who
insist the corporation is fundamentally unjust."

Lefever was President Reagan's first nominee to direct the State
Department's Office for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. According to
a Right Web profile, Lefever "was known as a fierce critic of President
Carter's human rights policy." His human rights bonafides with conservatives
in part may have grown out of a white paper he authored titled "The
Trivialization of Human Rights," which was published in 1978 by the Center.

Right Web pointed out that "In testimony before a Senate committee in 1979,
Lefever set forth the neoconservative position on human rights -- one that
would soon characterize the policy of the Reagan administration and would
two decades later be adopted by the Bush administration. He recommended that
the human rights records of governments receiving U.S. aid should 'not be
judged primarily by their internal policies but by their foreign policies.'"

In a story that could be pulled from today's headlines, Lefever was forced
to withdraw from consideration for the human rights post after it was
revealed that the Center had taken $35,000 from the Nestle Corp. According
to Right Web, "In an article in Fortune magazine, Lefever attacked Nestle's
critics, who charged that the corporation's aggressive marketing of its
infant powdered-milk formula in the third world was causing a new surge in
infant death, as "Marxists marching under the banner of Christ."

Ironically, the post was filled by Elliott Abrams, "who espoused the same
instrumentalist position on human rights as Lefever. Although Abrams entered
the Reagan administration scandal-free, he left as a convicted criminal" --
due to the Iran-Contra scandal -- only to re-emerge as a key player in the
Bush Administration. Abrams also served as the Center's president from 1996
to 2001.

In recent years, after George S. Weigel Jr., a Roman Catholic writer, took
the helm in 1989 (he currently is a senior fellow at the Center) and during
the current presidency of M. Edward Whelan III, a former advisor to the
White House Counsel and Attorney General and a former clerk for Justice
Antonin Scalia, the Center has focused its work on "clarifying and
re-enforcing the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the
public debate over domestic and foreign policy issues."

Weigel, who has been a seminal figure in the conservative movement for quite
some time, has been a strong, and unrepentant, supporter of President Bush's
War on Iraq. In a recent story titled "Anti-Life Ethics in Iraq," Jacob G.
Hornberger, the founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation,
pointed out that in a recent Weigel authored article titled "Baghdad
2006=Tet 1968?" published in the December 7, 2006, issue of the Arlington
Catholic Herald, the official newspaper for the Catholic Diocese of
Arlington, Weigel continued to maintain "that the allied action [invasion]
satisfied the conditions of a just war" - a position at odds with his own
Pope's view of the war.

"In arriving at his conclusion that the war on Iraq was warranted,"
Hornberger notes, "Weigel is implicitly claiming that it is morally
justifiable for U.S. soldiers, including Catholics, to kill Iraqi people
(none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks) in order to achieve
regime change in Iraq."

"It would be difficult to find a more morally and ethically abominable and
perverted view of human life than that. What Weigel is saying is that when
measured against regime change in Iraq, the life of an Iraqi citizen -- or
the lives of thousands of Iraqis -- is of only secondary importance."

The Center has an enviable record when it comes to raising money. From 1985
through 2005 the organization received 191 grants totaling over $13 million.
Among the Center's top funders are the Sarah Scaife Foundation, John M. Olin
Foundation, Earhart Foundation, William E. Simon Foundation, and the Lynde
and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Rick returns

According to a statement issued by the Center headlined "Rick Santorum Joins
Ethics and Public Policy Center, Establishes Program on America's Enemies,"
Santorum's effort will be focused on "threats posed to America and the West
from a growing array of anti-Western forces that are increasingly casting a
shadow over our future and violating religious liberty around the world."

"As a United States Senator, Rick Santorum was a champion of efforts to
counter the threat of radical Islamic fascism, to protect victims of
religious persecution, and to promote democracy and religious liberty around
the world," said EPPC President Ed Whelan. "We are honored that he is
joining EPPC to continue his important and courageous work on these
matters."

Santorum, who served 16 years in Congress (four in the House, 12 in the
Senate) and lost his bid for reelection in November to Democratic candidate
Bob Casey Jr., will become a senior fellow at the think tank. "In these
perilous and uncertain times, I believe it is critical that we define the
threats that confront America," Santorum said in a prepared statement.

"Without a clear definition and precise understanding of our enemies we
cannot fight effectively and our own citizens become divided. It is my hope
that the America's Enemies program at EPPC will help the American people --
including our leaders -- understand and communicate with clarity, honesty
and consistency the enemies we face and the complex and enormous threat that
they post to our lives and the freedoms we all enjoy."

In a National Review Online article titled "Rick's Return," Santorum told
John J. Miller that perhaps he shouldn't have spent so much time emphasizing
his pro-Iraq war position during the campaign: "Maybe that wasn't the
smartest political strategy, spending the last few months running purely on
national security. I was even more hawkish than the president."

In talking about his new project Santorum, never one to understate the case,
said that he recognizes that "America's Enemies" is a "stark name." He then
names his own Axis of Evil: "We wanted to be candid about the fact that
America really does have enemies and to point out that the nature of these
enemies is much more complex than what people realize. It's not just Islamic
fascism, but also Venezuela, North Korea, and, increasingly in my opinion,
Russia."

But David Neiwert, an expert on fascism, says that fascism is a specific
pathology constituted of a constellation of certain traits, only some of
which are described by Islamic radicalism, and some of which are
specifically repudiated by it. "Perhaps Santorum intends 'Islamic
totalitarianism,' which would be accurate; but fascism is a very specific
kind of totalitarianism, and what we see in the Islamic world today does not
fit the description."

According to NRO's John J. Miller, "Santorum plans to organize lectures and
conferences, write articles, and work on a book. (His book agent is Kathy
Lubbers, who is Newt Gingrich's daughter.) 'We expect to be very, very
active,' he says. One of his focal points will be religious liberty and how
people of faith might confront radical Islam."

Miller, national political reporter for National Review and the author "A
Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America," also
pointed out that "at least two members of Santorum's Senate staff will join
him at EPPC: Mark Rodgers, his former chief of staff, will be a fellow and
Melissa Anderson (a former National Review employee) will be associate
director of the America's Enemies program."

Santorum, who also plans to join a law firm in DC, will be responsible for
raising "all the funds" for his new program. "Our goal is to raise several
hundred thousand dollars in 2007," he told Miller.

It was also recently announced that Santorum was added to the Fox News
Channel's stable of contributors. The former Senator should feel at home in
both places.

Ousted Republican Senator will head up a new program called "America's
Enemies"