Charity Begins at Home for Rick Santorum

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is easy to dislike. The Pennsylvania Republican is a self-righteous and opportunistic hypocrite. He espouses right-wing values when the tide is flowing that way, but distances himself from them when the tide runs out, which it is in his home state.

Santorum faces a way serious challenge from Democrat Bob Casey, himself a conservative, and is trailing badly in polls. But now he has a more immediate problem or two as revealed by old friend Will Bunch in the cover story in The American Prospect's forthcoming issue.

Here's what's what:

Santorum and his wife received a $500,000, five-year mortgage for their Leesburg, Va., home from a small Philadelphia private bank run by a major campaign donor — even though its stated policy is to make loans only to its “affluent” investors, which the senator is not. This occurred at a time when Santorum is the so-called point man for the Republican's Senate ethics reform push. Furthermore, he is in violation of its current ethics rules if he received something a regular citizen could not get.

As well as this:

A little-publicized charity founded by Santorum in 2001, Operation Good Neighbor Foundation, is not registered in Pennsylvania, even though the majority of its fundraising and spending takes place here. Three years of public tax returns show the charity spent just 35.9 percent of the nearly $1 million it raised during that time on charity grants, well below the 75 percent threshold recommended by experts.

Look, this stuff goes on all the time. But Santorum is an easy target because he is so holier than thou and therefore merits special attention -- and heaps of criticism.

He also is virulently anti-gay and has the dubious distinction of having had his name enter the lexicon in a way he never intended. To find out what santorum means, go here. (Warning: This is not for the homophobic or faint of heart.)