"Hey, Torquemada, what do you say?"

Wednesday, February 22, 2012.

"Just got back from the auto de fe!": Mel Brooks as Torquemada in "History of the World: Part 1".

From the Department of Great Minds Thinking Alike.

Regarding the political press corps’ obsequious habit of flattering Rick Santorum’s vicious religiosity as simply a sincere devotion to his Catholic faith, here’s me, Saturday night on Twitter and then again right here on this stage Monday:

Santorum’s a “devout” Catholic only in the same sense Torquemada was a “devout” Catholic.

And here’s Gary Wills, writing for the New York Review of Books’ blog in a post dated Saturday:

[Santorum] is presented as a model Catholic. Torquemada was, in that sense, a model Catholic.

I hadn’t read Wills’ post and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t follow me on Twitter, but the Torquemada reference isn’t mere coincidence.  It’s a natural analogy that would occur to any Catholics who’d studied the history of their church.  Santorum talks more like an Inquisitor than like the guy who founded the faith.

But I wonder if Wills had to stop himself, as I did, from adding this to his post:

Comments

[actor212]

Errrr, how'd you stop yourself if you added it?