MORE ON SANTORUM: Give the progressives their due -- like a stopped clock, they are right every once in a while.

Example? The left anticipated Santorum would put his foot in his mouth five years ago.

In March 1998, Progressive magazine selected Santorum as the dumbest member of Congress. Yes, it's a biased list, but the entry on Santorum is still pretty funny. The key grafs:

Due to his frequent gaffes, Santorum's handlers carefully stage-manage his actions and rarely allow him to be interviewed without his press secretary, who helps the boss field any tough questions. In a 1995 profile, Philadelphia magazine said that "much of Santorum's record has been a series of tantrums," and quoted a former Republican Congressional staffer as saying, "If you took the key out of his back, I'm not sure his lips would keep moving."

One example: In speaking about the country's long-term prospects, Santorum remarked, "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that America will be here 100 years from now."

Go read the whole entry on Santorum -- the Bob Kerrey quote is pretty funny.

Thanks to alert reader J.B. for the link.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports on the first White House comment on Santorum:

"The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator" and in his No. 3 Senate GOP leadership post, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday....

"The president believes the senator is an inclusive man. And that's what he believes," Fleischer said.

The White House expressed confidence in the leadership of Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., in the immediate aftermath of his defense of a 1948 pro-segregation presidential ticket. As the remarks drew backlash, President Bush admonished Lott for them and said it was up to the Senate to decide whether he should remain as majority leader.

Developing...

ANOTHER UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has a more pessimistic interpretation of Bush's statement -- and he could be right. He's certainly on the money when he says this:

The simple truth is that I and many others feel immensely wounded not so much by some clumsy, ugly remarks by someone who might even in some way mean well; but by the indifference toward them by so many you thought might at least have empathized for a second.

Josh Marshall also weighs in on Santorum for the first time, and comes to the same conclusion I did:

When I first read about Santorum's remarks I found them objectionable. But I assumed that they were some form of a 'slippery slope' or reductio ad absurdum kind of argument, such as the ones above. But they weren't. In fact, the point he goes to great lengths to make doesn't even have anything to do with a constitutional argument. He's not saying, how can you make value-neutral distinctions between homosexuality and bigamy or incest. He is, as nearly as I can tell, making the positive assertion there are no distinctions. They are each "antithetical to strong, healthy families."