You’ll be hearing more, a lot more, from the media about how rising GOP star Rick Santorum is “extreme” — as demonstrated, not least, by his authoring the Santorum Amendment, whose language was included in the Conference Report of the No Child Left Behind Act. Santorum himself tells the story of that legislation in this clip from a radio interview with Jan Mickelson of WHO in Des Moines, Iowa.
Extreme? Nationally, support for teaching both sides of the evolution controversy, as called for by Santorum’s language, is not only overwhelming but — this surprised even us when the Zogby poll came out — even more pronounced among Democrats (at 82 percent) than among Republicans (at 73 percent). The amendment was supported by Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Kerry, and McCain. That was in 2001. In the real world that most Americans inhabit, as opposed to the imaginary construct of what folks at MSNBC and similar outlets think our country is, apple pie is probably more divisive than “teaching the controversy.”
Extreme, you say? Sounds just about as mainstream as you can get.