Bravo

Lance Mannion is always on the money, as in the following:

http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2012/02/devout-ricky.html

While it's not the very most important point, I'm delighted to read the last paragraph. I have no idea why all reports regarding Santorum, including even those coming out of MSNBC, refer to his "workingclass roots." It is, indeed, bull. Santorum's grandfather was an Italian communist who immigrated to the Pennsylvania coal fields, where he probably stood up for worker's rights and John L. Lewis. We don't know much about him, because Mr. Santorum granfils only mentions (as is his wont and style) the very tiny bits about gramps that serve his particular needs right now. Santorum also fails to mention with great regularity that his father was a practicing psychiatrist boasting a handsome income, or that he (little Ricky) grew up in the bosom of middle-class America. Santorum of course fails to mention any number of relevant facts about himself and his way of life. Mr. Santorum is a practiced liar of the first order, and has perfected the vague lie, such as the one of most immediate note, wherein he compares Mr. Obama to Hitler, but leaves himself just enough room to also lie that really he was just using a World War II metaphor with, actually, no subject at all.

Anyways, Mr. Mannion offers another good post, and if you can afford to send him a bit of scratch, he can use it and deserves it greatly, for shedding light where it's needed.

Meanwhile, Franklin Graham, now there's a piece of work. Lawrence O'Donnell did us a service last night by not mincing words about Mr. Graham. He is a religious demagogue making huge amounts of money and serving nothing and no one but himself and his family. And perhaps the Koch Brothers. I'm sure you can find Mr. O'Donnell's take-down of Graham's amazing public hypocrisy with ease via the google. Needless to say, it speaks to the contempt in which Mr. Graham holds all ordinary Americans that he can say, straight to the camera, that while he can't tell what's in Mr. Obama's heart concerning whether he is a Christian, he can at the same time say with certainty that Mr. Santorum is indeed a Christian. What an amazing load. I am sorry to tell you that the Grahams, father and son, call North Carolina home. They make John Edwards look like a mere miscreant, and that takes some doing. And the worst thing Franklin Graham pulls off is the continuous modelling of the behavior of denial: he shows to the gullible and judgmental-tending "flock" that all one has to do to be a Christian is to incant a few words--there is no real price, and once the incantation is complete, one can join those who feel free to despise the hard working, intelligent man in the White House who's actually doing a decent job of the fundamentally impossible. Graham joins Limbaugh and the rest of the right wing ranters in spell-binding the gullible public.

The photo opening this post comes from
http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/franklin-graham-clean-up-your-own-back-yard/
The article which it accompanies there is a fine read.