FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

It's a favorite story. I've told it for years. It has the virtue of being true, with the exception of changing a name to protect the long gone. And it can illustrate almost anything.

Grandma Armbruster, a reckless elderly neighbor who had long before lost all sense of proportion, took a group of neighborhood kids for a series of riotous, dangerous, automotive adventures. Nobody not directly involved found out about the narrow escapes from tragedy. The kids loved it.

On one trip, she was pulled over by a police officer. Did she realize she had just roared through a stop sign? Grandma Armbruster was indignant. She lectured the startled police officer. She pointed angrily at the dust covered windshield. "How do you expect me to see a little stop sign through that dirty glass?"

Rick Santorum strikes me as honest to a fault. He blurts out every idea that has implanted itself in his mind. His later explanations remind me a little of Grandma Armbruster. Just a little. Other stories may fit better, but Grandma Armbruster remains a favorite.

One old fable has a defendant, accused of driving on a suspended license, explain why he is late to a court hearing. "It was unavoidable, your honor. I was involved in a traffic accident."

Sometimes the alibi is worse than the accusation. Sometimes an explanation is more startling than whatever is being excused. Rick Santorum does not simply misspeak. He talks the talk without any apparent recognition that his words are anything out of the ordinary. He seems perpetually startled by the reaction.

Other politicians have taken bold stands, gone against the grain, become profiles in courage. But what are we to make of his lack of anticipation? He has to be so used to communing with the most extreme of conservatives that his opinions seem to him to be unremarkable, completely representative of the national dialogue.

One recent critique of President Obama continues to make headlines. The President's governance is "not about you."

It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job.

It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.

Okay, so a number of Americans on the right don't believe President Obama is a Christian. Santorum didn't really mean that, though. He says so himself through his National Communications Director, Hogan Gidley. Mr. Gidley's prepared statement on behalf of the candidate:

The President says he’s a Christian and Rick believes that and has even said so publicly many times. Rick was talking about the President’s belief in the secular theology of government.

So, according to the Santorum campaign, their goal is to replace our secular form of government with something Biblically based. It is an epic ambition. Presumably it would be difficult to amend scripture.

In fact, most of us assume President Rick Santorum, along with the Congress he would bring in with him, would have a modicum of restraint that would keep them from the stoning of disobedient children, the enforcement of religious rites, and the strict rules on the treatment of slaves that Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Exodus would dictate. Still it is a startling new goal.

I don't think any of this is as calculated as it might seem. Certainly it appeals to the most conservative of the Republican base. But I think the candidate's bewilderment at the more general reaction is real.

Billy Crystal, I dimly recall, told a story about his very young boyhood. As a very little kid, he discovered a package of sanitary napkins in some corner of the family bathroom. He asked his older sister about it. What were they for? His sister told him they were for "special occasions." When Thanksgiving rolled around, his mother told him to set the table for an honored guest. His elderly aunt would pay a very rare visit. The poor aunt was shocked when she saw the sanitary napkins, every one neatly placed alongside the polished silver next to each plate. In the rushed gathering up and replacement that followed, as apologies were repeated and repeated again, poor Billy was dragged and carried by his father into another room. The father looked at his son in disappointment for a moment, in obvious wonder at what childish resentment had produced what had to have been a cruel juvenile prank. Finally, he brought himself to ask the question. "Why..." pause "... did you put those on the table?" Billy, in befuddled misery, responded, "It's a special occasion!"

I suppose it is the puzzlement on Rick Santorum's face, growing with each strange incident, that eventually convinced me that he is more akin to young Billy Crystal than to the indignant Grandma Armbruster. I confess that I brought her up mainly because she's an old favorite. She'll be back.

In actuality, Mitt Romney is the one with the dirty old windshield.
Rick Santorum is the one for whom every campaign event is a special occasion.