Santorum’s Big Government Hypocrisy

Santorum’s announcement of his presidential bid included the following statement:

“Today across America, people are looking for a leader who is optimistic, and who believes that we must meet those challenges, that we can meet those challenges, and that we can keep faith, not with big government, but with free people.”

Closet-cases like George Rekers, Larry Craig, and Ted Haggard are a goldmine of schadenfreude, but the self-hating gay is hardly the only breed of hypocrite on the political scene. While Santorum may be spouting off about personal freedom and limited government, that certainly hasn’t been his history in either word or deed. And it’s not just the lefties who have noticed.

Santorum’s notorious support of anti-sodomy laws during the Lawrence vs Texas decision of 2003 was a clear rejection of individual rights. He also made a high profile statement about federal usurpation of state authority as one of only three senators to vote in the Palm Sunday Compromise, which got the federal government involved in the Terri Schiavo case back in 2005. The legislative and executive branches passed a law that applied to exactly one person. Doesn’t that level of acute interference kind of epitomize the problem with big government?

It’s not just Santorum’s hypocrisy or the pandering turnaround that grates, but the fact that he prioritizes his religious beliefs above any convictions he may have about what constitutes good governance.