Bob Casey Jumps The Shark

You have to love the lede to Newsmax's story on last night's Rick Santorum-Bob Casey debate:

Closing in on his front-runner opponent in the polls, Senator Rick Santorum, R-PA, came out swinging in the first and probably the only public debate with Pennsylvania State Treasurer Bob Casey. [emphasis added]

The reason why was made brutally clear on the Meet The Press stage before an aghast Tim Russert: Santorum wiped the floor, walls, ceiling, and air conditioning ducts with his challenger. Casey, who has led in the race all year based on nothing but his family name and the Left’s relentlessly rabid attacks on the incumbent, was exposed as the empty-headed empty suit he really is, and just as the general campaign stretch run is drawing public attention:

[Santorum] may have delivered a knockout blow to Casey, who appeared confused and inarticulate during his encounter with the fast-talking Santorum during their weekend debate on NBC's Meet the Press with host Tim Russert.

Writing at SantorumBlog, contributor Rich Talbert observed: "Casey was a dead stick when discussing Iraq ... was absolutely clueless about Social Security ... bombed with Catholics with the abortion pill ... dropped the ball on the pay raise ... but did a good job coming across as sophomoric and being awfully smug and sarcastic."

That last one is a particularly gratuitous self-inflicted blow, since one of Casey’s supposed selling points was his lack of controversy, his "moderation," and his being, like his deceased ex-gubernatorial pop, a nice guy.

Just as he came across as a prick, his supposed centrism was also nowhere to be seen:

Asked whether he still believes he would have voted to support the Iraq invasion in light of Saddam Hussein's lack of unconventional weapons, Casey said his vote would have been no. "If we knew then what we know now, I think there wouldn't have been a vote.

"If a lot of Americans knew now — if they knew then what they know now, they would, they would have thought that this war was the war that shouldn’t have been fought based upon the misleading of this Administration."

Militant, suicidal, Bushophobic pacifism – check.

Asked how he would balance the federal budget, Casey replied that he would repeal the recent tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year, the very tax cut that gave the U.S. the world’s fastest growing and strongest economy, and retain a tax on very large estates. He refused however, to cite any federal programs he would be willing to cut.

Big government, tax-raising, budget-busting fiscal Menshevism – check.

"I don't think you're talking about a crisis," the Democrat said during an hourlong debate yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press. Mr. Casey said the program - raided for years by federal lawmakers to pay for other government programs - will fix itself.

"So [we'll have] double the people on Social Security and Medicare, and life expectancy approaches eighty. And the solution is 'do nothing'?" moderator Tim Russert asked.

Mr. Casey suggested reinstating the estate tax and then hoping for a booming economy to "grow" the program out of the peril that actuarial tables and demographics predict.

"You want to grow the economy by increasing taxes?" scoffed Mr. Santorum, sitting next to him. "So, he's saying we have to grow the economy so we're going to take more out of it. That's a great way to grow the economy."

Wow, that was the trifecta – ignore the looming Social Security meltdown, pretend that economic growth will bail it out, and then propose tax increases that will do nothing but retard economic growth. Even Russert wasn’t buying that one.

It’s no wonder that Casey didn’t want any debates, and sure as hell doesn’t want any more of them after this debacle. Just behold the magnitude of his flailing and floundering as Senator Santorum effortlessly carried out his systematic humiliation:

When pressed as to the specific actions he would take in Iraq, Casey mentioned increasing the number of Special Forces, leading Santorum to say: My opponent has no plan. The idea — all he’s suggested is his plan is special-"

Interrupted Casey: "I just gave a plan. Where’s yours?

Santorum repeated his allegation and then went for the jugular, asking Casey: "Do you support more intelligence gathering because your party has been out there trying to undermine our surveillance programs? You’re the one who’s gone out and said that you have serious questions about our intelligence surveillance programs. What do you think has kept our people safe? What do you think stopped the British, the British attack? You folks have been the party, as you have been the party, of making sure that we don’t have the intelligence gathering capabilities that we need, and, and, and have, have joined in making sure..."

Casey interjected: "Rick, you’re not debating the party, you’re debating me right here."

Said Santorum: "I’m debating you. And I’ve looked at your comments saying that you have serious concerns about our surveillance programs."

Said Casey: "No, we should, we should, we should keep the programs and keep the wiretaps..."

Santorum countered: "Well, my point is that we need to have strong surveillance programs. You mentioned Special Forces. We have lots of Special Forces out there, but they need intelligence if they’re going to be able to do their jobs. And as far as that being a plan to solve this problem, I think you just fundamentally misunderstand the problem. You’re saying that somehow or another the language and terminology doesn’t matter. You believe that we’re going to win or lose this war on the battlefield in Iraq and the battlefield in Afghanistan. I don’t. I think we’ll win or lose this war right here in America."

My God, Casey is pathetic. He wasn’t prepared to be tied to the lunacy of his party. He didn’t even seem more than superficially acquainted with his party’s lunatic talking points. Santorum had him so flustered and confused that by the time the beating was finished, Casey had not only chased his tail to exhaustion, but he’d tied in knots the portions of it he hadn’t already inadvertently ingested.

If you’re an undecided Pennsylvania voter, what are you to make of Bob Casey after last night? Where does he stand on the war? On intelligence-gathering? On Gitmo? Social Security? Abortion? Sheesh, "insert issue here." What does he understand about any of these topics? What are his actual views, as opposed to those of his party of crazy neoBolsheviks? Does he even have three brain cells to rub together?

That debate reads like the proverbial nightmare where you are unexpectedly confronted with a big test you haven’t studied for, and your entire future rests upon the outcome, and you’re sitting all by yourself in the middle of a great, big auditorium with the whole world watching you, and it’s dark except for a bright, hot spotlight shining down upon you, and then you look down and see that you’re stark naked besides. The only thing Bob Casey made clear to the Pennsylvania electorate last night is that he is not remotely close to being ready to step up to the prime time of the U.S. Senate.

It may, come to think of it, also reflect what might be termed the "Ned Lamont" effect. If Casey really is a moderate, he nevertheless saw what happened to Joe Lieberman in Connecticut last month and fears being abandoned by his own if he doesn't toe the hard-left line the Dem base angrily and belligerently demands. How ironic, if so, that he's not learning from what's transpired since, as Lieberman's brand of patriotic liberalism is propelling his independent candidacy to a runaway victory, a template that would doubtless serve Casey well long about now.

Meanwhile, by contrast, Rick Santorum has set the standard for every GOP candidate across the country to emulate by being "a feisty, unapologetic conservative, energetically voicing his support of President Bush despite suggestions that he has sought to distance himself from the President." After last night's debate, you have to conclude that the balance of base enthusiasm has shifted even more toward the Santorum camp.

I expect the polls, which have been sliding in Santorum’s direction, to continue to do so, and for the Casey campaign, in its sudden and increasing angst, to plunge headlong into the partisan insanity from which it once maintained so discrete - and wise - a distance.