Bravo, Rick Santorum

There. I said it. Philadelphia Senator Rick Santorum has done A Good Thing. And we (take your pick: liberals, atheists, smarty-pantses) ought to applaud him for it.

Santorum is, make no mistake, a douchebag. But we should not be so blinded by his douchebaggery that we fail to see positive moves and, as good behavioralists, reward them.

Right now, the liberal blogosphere (notably, Americablog, via Buzzflash) is going nuts hammering Santorum for hypocrisy or flip-flopping, or whatever, after he's renounced his support for the Dover, PA, school board and the various sham groups that backed its attempt to inject creationism into American classrooms.

I understand the reaction. There's blood in the water. Start chewing. And there's something to be said for the take-no-prisoners approach, for the idea that it's better, in some respects, to have our opponents assume their most radical form, that Americans might more easily recognize them for what they are.

But this isn't just a philosophical battle. It's not a game. This is an ongoing, real, practical battle being waged every day for control of our schools, our towns and our country. Real people pay the price every day. Students are having their educations -- i.e., their framework for understanding the entire world -- short-changed every day due to religious zealotry. We should therefore, I think, not penalize those of our enemies who see the light on particular issues. We should praise them. We should reward and defend them. Or else, we make conversion to our positions a no-win proposition.

And besides, as we've seen from how Republicans embrace Sen. Joe Lieberman, there doesn't have to be a realpolitik down-side in doing this, either, even on a strictly strategic level. Have Republicans lost anything by rewarding Lieberman for his adoption of their military tenets? No. If anything, they've used the opportunity to build bridges and make inroads. They look non-partisan, plus they get to use Lieberman, and their embrace of him, to appeal to fence-sitting voters. Democrats shouldn't be pouncing on Santorum. They should be pounding on his voters.