Not so much breaking news today than it is the usual local news’ traffic accident report, Rick Santorum announced today he is running for president. The man famous for asserting his superior knowledge of all things torture to that of John McCain, who was actually tortured, will be bringing his sparkling intellect to the presidential race.

Upon reflection, Santorum has decided that the lesson to be learned from being slaughtered by Robert Casey 59% to 41% when running as an incumbent for a Pennsylvania senate seat in 2006, is that what voters really meant to say was, “Run again, Rick, Run Again”.

Santorum’s Greatest Hits of asinine and ideologically cuckoo comments are numerous enough to entail several days of continuous reading for an average reader. But even among his best there are some exquisite gems that stand out. One of my favorites is from the Terry Schiavo episode, when in an outburst of anti-right-to-die extremism, anti-government members of congress like Santorum called for Congress to intervene in the case of the Florida woman in a persistent vegetative state, whose husband was seeking to remove her feeding tube so that she could die in dignity as she had informed her husband she hoped to do under such a circumstance. The irony of Republican government-haters wishing to bigfoot this most personal and intimate of family decisions is still a record in the Guinness Book of Records.

Santorum made the magnificently stupid statement that Schiavo’s condition was “close to equivalent of someone with the disease cerebral palsy.” I suppose one could mistake one suffering from Cerebral Palsy with a person in a permanent vegetative state if she lay very, very, very still. Otherwise, this comment is a Hall of Famer. In fact, Santorum and his Republican cohorts all but vowed that if Schiavo could only be kept alive a little longer she very shortly would be a prime contestant for Dancing with the Stars.

Another of Santorum’s jewels came during the period when many Republicans were attempting to shift the blame for the massive federal mishandling of Katrina on everybody but the Bush administration, including the actual victims. Santorum had this glittering epiphany:

“I mean, you have people who don’t heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving.”

That’s right, if you’re too poor, lacking transportation, have no money with which to survive outside New Orleans or simply have no other place to go, or for any reason simply cannot manage to escape the path of a hurricane, you’re going to pay. If the hurricane doesn’t kill you, Santorum will, at least financially according to him. Personally, I believe the only appropriate punishment is waterboarding. But let’s just give Santorum credit for astuteness in making the observation that “there are consequences for not leaving.”

I could go on with more of these sublimely idiotic comments…and on, and on, and on, and on and on. But it wouldn’t be fair to the other Village Idiots also in need of attention. I do wish to welcome Rick Santorum to the presidential field. Say what you will about me, I like to laugh.