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Signed, Sealed, Delivered: And now, an open letter to Rick Santorum

Dear Mr. Santorum,

Up to this point, I have not blogged about this particular political cycle. I do not like blogging about politics in general. My legions of followers can, I am sure, do without my commentary (whereas posts about Ke$ha they simply cannot do without). Last night, when asked for an opinion on you by a friend of my father’s, I responded that I was taught that, when one has nothing nice to say, one should say nothing at all, and that I thus had nothing to say about you.

But this morning I actually read a compilation of your quotes on womanity as compiled by The Washington Post. And Sir, do I have somethings to say to you. (No, Sir, none of them are nice. Yes, I am going against my previous answer. Yes, that answer was meant to be snarky. Let’s continue.)

Thing 1: Women have been serving in combat for America many, many years. Women have been serving in combat on behalf of many other countries for many, many years. If a woman wants to serve her country by enlisting, she should be allowed to do that. I am sure she will be able to keep her emotions in check long enough to serve, and that chivalry is not quite so alive that what you have called a masculine instinct to defend the fairer sex will not be put before whatever mission is at hand.

Thing 2: I am not actually going to go acknowledge your claim that a pregnancy by rape is a “gift from God,” but I will say that it is the height of hypocrisy that you talk about small government, except in cases of the most intimate issues of women’s health.

Thing 3: You keep using the phrase “radical feminist.” I do not think this means what you think it means. For example, in your book It Takes a Family, you wrote, “Radical feminists have been making the pitch that justice demands that men and women be given an equal opportunity to make it to the top in the workplace.” Right. Yes. Except that that isn’t radical feminism, that’s basic human dignity. You’re taking issue with equal opportunity. You’re taking issue with evaluation of individuals as individuals based on merit. You’re taking issue with justice ensuring the disintegration of discrimination. Isn’t that the more radical position?

Thing 4: The economy is a complicated mess, the world continues to turn in the most lop-sided way possible, and don’t you know there’s a war going on? And yet you, for some reason, continue to bring us back to your incredibly ill-informed views on conservative American time, back to your fantasy to this time and place and country that, for excellent reason, never actually existed. If you hold these untruths to be self-evident, fine. But this rhetoric is not only highly offensive to thinking people of both genders, nor is it simply unhelpful to the way discourse is had in this country (also, Sir, this is not 2004). It is also not contributive in any way to the conversations that need to be had.

You may be a very nice person, Sir. I would not actually know. And, to be honest, I do not particularly care. Because I know that any person who would make comments as willfully ignorant and uninformed as the ones you have made, who would use rhetoric that is as counterproductive and, quite frankly, irrelevant as that which you have used—that person has no place in the White House.

xx,

ET