"If you took the key out of his back...

... I'm not sure his lips would keep moving."


So said a Republican staffer of Rick Santorum's early years in the Senate, as quoted in the March, 1998, Progressive magazine article about the dimmest bulbs in Congress, by Ken Silverstein (now blogging for Harpers).

Silverstein continues: "The boy blunder of American politics and a one-time lobbyist for the World Wrestling Federation, thirty-nine-year-old Santorum repeatedly humiliates himself in public. 'Santorum?' Senator Bob Kerrey once commented. 'Is that Latin for asshole?'"

Kerrey will be happy to know that his estimation is still accurate. Santorum, apparently in some weird, desperate attempt to boost his badly flagging campaign, announced Wednesday that the WMDs in Iraq had finally been found. Tomorrow, Santorum will announce that Scott Armstrong proved conclusively, in 1969, that the Moon was made of green cheese.

Wednesday, the Department of Defense was quick to say that this was not new news, nor was it proof of an active weapons program in Iraq. (The weapons found have been incidental and unusable for chemical weapons purposes--the buried shells were most often found empty, and those that contained anything only had small amounts of decomposed sarin or mustard gas left over from the Iran-Iraq war almost twenty years ago.) Even the Whores of Babblelong, Fox News, indicated that Santorum's source for the information was the Duelfer Report, which is now approaching two years old, and the shells to which Santorum referred were dismissed as insignificant in that report.

Tomorrow, NASA will make an announcement that Armstrong was apparently misquoted by Santorum, and that the composition of the Moon is very much similar to that of Santorum's head, basaltic granite.

Santorum's cohort in this effort, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, inexplicably a member of the House Intelligence Committee, will be shipped to Santorum's home town and installed as statuary in the back yard of Santorum's unoccupied house, which Santorum has previously claimed as his primary residence. That way Hoekstra will serve some useful purpose and Santorum can say that the house is being rented by a colleague.

New polls have just come out, showing Santorum down 18 points to his Democratic challenger, Bob Casey, Jr., which has prompted a flurry of attack ads by Santorum. Santorum has lots of money for advertising, as he has been heavily funded for this campaign by rich crazy people who are determined to throw their money away.

Santorum's campaign advisers have a full schedule of historical revisions arranged for Sen. Rick. A press release from Santorum campaign headquarters today says that on Monday, the Senator from Pennsylvania will travel to New York to announce that Grant is not buried in Grant's Tomb, and that Grant's body was removed by Bill and Hillary Clinton to make room for that of Vince Foster. On Tuesday, Santorum will travel to Oregon to announce the whereabouts of D.B. Cooper. On Wednesday, Santorum will be in Chicago to definitively show that Geraldo Rivera faked his opening of Al Capone's vault. On Thursday, Santorum will fly back to Washington, DC, to introduce legislation authorizing the summary execution of gay midget illegal immigrants. Randy Newman has ignored Santorum's invitation to appear in person to sing "Short People" as the bill was submitted.

On Friday, Santorum will again be on the trail of errant historical fact, traveling to Argentina to dispel the rumors that the country was once a haven for Nazi war criminals. On Sunday, Santorum will offer the lay homily at Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, with the topic: "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that America will be here 100 years from now." [actual quote]

The following Monday, Santorum will be in Roswell, New Mexico, to announce the discovery of a crashed flying saucer.

Santorum campaign officials have refused comment on rumors that Santorum will be hiring himself out as a piñata on November 7th.