From Charles P. Pierce: Rick Santorum's Mortal Sin in the Terri Schiavo Case

"In 2005, Santorum made headlines — not all positive — for visiting the deathbed of Terri Schiavo, the woman at the center of a national right-to-die controversy. What my Philadelphia Daily News colleague John Baer later exposed was that the real reason he was in the Tampa, Fla., area was to collect money at a $250,000 fundraiser organized by executives of Outback Steakhouses, a company that shared Santorum's passion for a low minimum wage for waitresses and other rank-and-file workers. Santorum’s efforts were also aided by his unusual mode of travel: Wal-Mart's corporate jet. And he canceled a public meeting on Social Security reform "out of respect for the Schiavo family" even as the closed fundraisers went on."

"As it happens, in a book which, by the way, ahem, er, ah, makes a swell Valentine's Day gift, I included a chapter on the Schiavo case from the perspective of the good people who worked at the Woodside Hospice and lived through the completely unnecessary political donkeyshow brought down on the place by opportunistic Pecksniff assholes like Rick Santorum. There was the elementary school down the block that had to be closed because of bomb threats. There was the Haitian cook who got called a "Nazi" and a "murderer" on her way to work. There was the volunteer — a woman whom both George H.W. Bush and his son, Jeb, had commended for her work at the hospice — who had to stop coming because of the whackaloons who had laid siege to the place. There was the brave and strong Annie Santa Maria, who had to try and keep that good place running through all the foul madness that had been visited upon it and the people who do such great work there, every fking day, and who once was unable to break up a near fistfight between priests in her lobby because she had to stay by a fax machine to wait for a congressional subpoena for Terri Schiavo that was being faxed from Washington by opportunistic Pecksniff yahoos very similar to Rick Santorum. These people wanted Terri to testify, despite the fact that she pretty much had no brain left to speak of.

"The Schiavo case was a Moment, and the conservative movement in this country was revealed for the deceitful, arrogant, anti-humanity enterprise that it always has been. (I remember Barney Frank once telling me, with some amazement, that Democrats were telling their Republican colleagues that the party was going over a cliff on this case. It didn't help.) I don't even care that Santorum went down there on the Wal-Mart corporate jet to raise money from a bunch of steakhouse fatcats. I don't even care that, just as Barney warned the Republicans, his involvement in the Schiavo circus may have been the first real factor contributing to his eventual loss to the spectral Bob Casey, Jr."

<snip>

"What I care about is that he exploited family's personal tragedy for his own political gain. What I care about is that this good Catholic boy committed what the Jesuits of my youth would have called an unforgivable mortal sin against charity. What I care about is that he contributed to a disgusting public spectacle that made life difficult for some wonderful people doing great, impossible work, people whose boots he is not worthy to lick. God, I hope there is an accounting one day."


Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rick-santorum-terri-schiavo-6633360