He said Schiavo was executed.

I've been thinking lately about Rick Santorum's brain.  It is, and I don't care where your politics lie, something to think about.

For example: he recently said Terri Schiavo was "executed."

He was answering questions about her autopsy report confirming her irreversible vegetative state and whether he regrets what some saw as a grandstanding unsolicited visit to her deathbed during a political fundraising trip to Florida.

He bristles at this, by the way, claiming he'd have been criticized for not going down there.

By whom, I wonder?

"No, no. I don't have any regrets that I stood up for what I believed was right in defending a disabled person from being executed," he said.

Executed? I try to picture a blindfolded Schiavo dragged in front of a firing squad of "activist judges," but can't.

I'm not sure what Rick pictures.

He also said the press lies about him. In a recent fund-raising letter he said, "I can't rely on the mainstream media to tell the truth about my record."

When I ask for examples of media lies he says, "The mainstream media has fundamentally ignored my record and chronically does so. If you don't tell what goes on, that's not telling the truth."

Hmmm.

So the truth is Schiavo was executed, and not  regularly detailing the totality of a single politician's record is a lie?

See, from where I sit news is not constant regurgitation of someone's "record," it's conveying new information of sufficient public interest to warrant the space it's given  (And you media critics can save yourself the trouble of an e-mail questioning this space; what you're reading is commentary, not news).

Speaking of news, I also ask about a New York Times Magazine cover photo last month in which a smiling Santorum, hands folded, eyes heavenward, appears transfixed in prayer.

"Yes," he says, he posed for it. Uh, what were you thinking, I ask? He says he was told to do something with his hands, then look here, look there, you know, like a kid at a K-Mart photo shoot following a stuffed toy in a photog's hand. That's his story.

As you can see in the picture, I say he's practicing for his holy card.

I'd remind you this is the same Senate leader who recently likened Democrats fighting to save the filibuster to Nazis, who once equated homosexuality with bestiality and who claimed the Catholic priest pedophile scandal in Boston should be no surprise since Boston is "a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America."

In other words, Harvard, the Kennedys, Kerry and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts are to blame for priests preying on altar boys.

Now, because I do what I do, I actually appreciate Santorum's brain.

I mean contrast it with the brain of Bob Casey Jr.

I've known Casey since the days he worked on his late father's campaigns. I can't recall him saying one thing controversial. Not then, not since then, not ever.

Add that to the fact he's been pretty quiet lately as news swarms around Santorum and their Senate race. Is he Silent Bob? Cautious Casey? I start to phrase such a question to Casey and he interjects, "Boring?"  Well, yeah, that's part of it.  Then he says, generally speaking, "It's hard to make comparisons."  Huh? No it's not. I just made one.

Here's another: Santorum's brain works like a Gatling gun, Casey's like a one-shot musket. Should make for an interesting shootout. At least that's what I'm thinking.

John Baer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jun 24, 2005

[Santorum is using New York Times Magazine article excerpts in a fundraising letter].

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