By JACQUES BERLINERBLAU - THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Added: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:31:54 UTC

Secular-baiting has become something of an art form in high GOP circles ever since Newt Gingrich began his pioneering explorations of the genre back in the 1990s.

A milestone in the evolution of this rhetoric occurred in 2007 when Mitt Romney likened Secularism to radical Jihadism in a memorable speech.

Those were impressive accomplishments, for sure. But let me say that no one, but no one, can demonize, Talibanize, or Stalinize Secularism like Rick Santorum. On occasion he has done so, I would admit, with a fair degree of intellectual seriousness, as in this 2010 speech. Though for the most part his pronouncements on the subject amount to rank and preposterous name-calling.

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TAGGED: US POLITICS