After losing his Senate seat, Rick Santorum has quickly rebounded and joined the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center where he will head up a program called – literally – America’s Enemies.
The EPPC press release says:
“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.”
“In these perilous and uncertain times, I believe it is critical that we define the threats that confront America,” said Mr. Santorum. “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 pose to our lives and the freedoms we all enjoy.”
According to an article in The National Review, Santorum has big plans for his new program:
“It’s a stark name,” says Santorum. “But 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.”
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How will a former senator adjust to life at a think tank? “This is a very impressive group of folks who share my worldview more than any other group in town,” says Santorum. “We’re going to have a lot of synergy. I know that I’m not the foremost scholar in the world, but I can offer a lot of ideas and help put together a communications strategy to describe the threats we face. Communication is a big problem, as the results of the elections in November show.”
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.
Now that he is out of the Senate, it was nice of the EPPC to give Santorum a platform from which he can continue his work defending the country against its terrorist enemies by making bizarre comparisons to “Lord of the Rings.”
On a positive note, at least Santorum’s home in Virginia has now become a convenience instead of a political liability.
