I Want to Sit at the Table with Joe Scarborough

I'd show Mika how it's done.

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I barely remember when Kennedy ran for President. Mostly, I remember that my parents and aunts and uncles, all Catholics (some just in name only, like my father), were pleased that a member of the "club" had won the ultimate prize.

Years later, as a high school student, I learned about the speech Kennedy was forced to give during his campaign to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers who had serious questions about the feasibility of a Catholic becoming President of the United States.

My mother remembered the occasion well, but, she told me, what Kennedy faced was nothing like what Al Smith faced in his campaign against Herbert Hoover in 1928. My late mother was a child then. She remembered the open invective against Catholics in general, the snide political cartoons. And the Klan.

Now, Rick Santorum is looking like the frontrunner in the GOP contest. This is a man who thinks that victims of rape and incest should bear the fruits of these crimes as "broken gifts." Here is a man who wants contraceptives made illegal, because contraceptives encourage the idea that sex might be fun, when it's really for procreative purposes. Here is a man who thinks that United States citizens have no right to privacy, that same sex marriage is akin to man-on-dog relationships. Here is a man who not only believes that religion shouldn't be separated from state, but that his religious values should be imposed on everyone.

Did I mention his race issue? Check out "blah" people.

But, according to Joe Scarborough, Rick Santorum is just a regular guy.

I say that Rick Santorum is the Catholic Americans were afraid of not just in John Kennedy's time, but also Al Smith's.

He reeks of Opus Dei. If he's elected, expect to see a resident Exorcist-in-Chief.