Who Knew Rick Santorum Was a Nice Guy?

Why do I get a feeling of déjà vu about Peggy Noonan’s appreciation of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), now in a fight for his political life?

Noonan wheels out an unnamed moderate Republican senator to give us a look at his character.

The other day I called a former senator, a crusty old moderate Republican, and asked him if he liked Mr. Santorum. "No," he said, "I love him."

...

The former senator: "The political scientists all say to be honest and stand for principle, that's what people want. And he was exactly that, and he's about to get his head handed to him."

The guy thought for a moment and then said it was sad.

Then Noonan tells a story about the Santorums, Rick and Karen, praying every night for their opponents, the Careys, in the Pennsylvania race for the Senate. They knew how hard the campaign was for them, so they assumed it must be just has hard for their opponents.

It made me think of another man who for his entire political career was defined by his enemies, just as Santorum is hated by liberals of all stripes, as a hard-right ideologue.

Yes, of course. Ronald Reagan.

If you are a liberal comer, like, oh let’s say Barack Obama, you get fawning profiles in the MSM about what a wonderful person you are way back when you are just an asterisk, an inexperienced politician still wet behind the ears.

But if you are a conservative comer you run the gauntlet of liberal rabbit punchers your entire political career.

We only know the real Ronald Reagan, extraordinary man and great president, years after his departure from the arena of high politics as the men and women that worked for him tell their stories.

And so it seems it must be also for Rick Santorum.

Oh, he’s such a great guy, we learn, only after a long decade of liberal langrel.

If you want to know what people are really like, never, never, never listen to a liberal.

I’m sick of it.