Heated comments

Rick Santorum made some rather angry-sounding, heated comments about Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA). Waters had pressed for job-creation policies and used some rather heated language herself:

"This is a tough game," she explained. "You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned -- the 'tea party' can go straight to hell."

Why is Waters so angry? A lot of her frustration actually has to do with the President.

...Illinois Democrat Jesse Jackson, Jr. says he understands her frustration. “President Obama got 96 percent of [the black] vote but he isn’t dealing with our biggest problem—unemployment—which is more than twice that of whites,” Jackson told Colorlines.com...

And

The Los Angeles representative was unhappy that the president chose to take his recent bus tour through Midwestern rural areas instead of urban centers where blacks live...

Co-founders of the Tea Party Patriots are very unhappy with her remark, of course, and they condemned her remark and asked "Is civility required only of their opponents?" Santorum added:

"She's a caricature of what's wrong with Congress," Santorum told conservative radio host Steve Malzberg. "She's vile. She's always been that way, and she's just one of these real, real nasty, you know, anti-basic traditional, fundamental values of this country."

"This is the left in America. They absolutely despise, you know, the founding principles of this country, that believes in free people, that believes in limited government. She is someone who believes she should control what's going on in America, that she knows best, and that people that stand by constitutional principles of limited government are folks who are to be condemned."

Whoof! Did we get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?!?!? "Vile"? But what I found especially interesting here is his apparent defense of Herbert Hoover-type policies as opposed to Franklin Roosevelt-type policies. Problem is, if Hoover-type policies were so effective, why aren't Republicans claiming that they're working just fine? It probably doesn't help that economic indicators are getting softer as Republicans pass their 200th day in control of the House of Representatives. Housing sales are off. The economy is dipping. A blogger looks at a growing company (Apple) versus a shrinking company (Eastman Kodak), compares US economic policy to Kodak's and concludes that both the US economy and Kodak are showing poor morale and an aversion to risk that augur poorly for the future. Will the "super committee" created by the debt-ceiling deal accomplish anything? Probably not.

So, I have a feeling that if "basic traditional, fundamental values" were doing well, Santorum wouldn't be nearly as upset. If doing essentially nothing were causing the economy to pick itself up, then Santorum would be much easier and breezy about Waters' criticism. As it is, Santorum sounds pretty bent out of shape about it.