U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, in the opening phase of a tough re-election race, delivered a major address on the war in Iraq recently at the Valley Forge Military Academy and College.
The bulk of his speech was a call for American unity in the conflict against Islamic fascism, in the way the U.S. united during World War II.
“Those were different times, when men and women put country ahead of political ideology,” he said.
To that end, Santorum announced the major point of his speech: to create a bipartisan review board of retired legislators and military offices, which would try to find solutions to the current situation that would unite the country.
The plan has failed to gain momentum, however, and has not been endorsed by President Bush.
Santorum also criticized the media’s coverage of the war.
“I don’t know of any other war in American history where every death is a headline, and only the death is the story,” he said.
Recruiting stations are bombed almost every day, he said, but Iraqis keep going to defend their country. Every soldier he has spoken to thinks the U.S. is winning, he added, “yet these stories go unreported.”
Santorum pointed out that it took 11 years for America to move from independence to its present constitution, but it has only taken two years for Iraq.
Santorum, Pennsylvania’s junior senator, is up for re-election in November. He is considered strongly conservative and has risen quickly in the ranks of congressional Republicans.
The presumed Democratic candidate for his seat, Robert Casey, Jr., is a fellow pro-life Catholic and the son of popular former Pa. governor Robert Casey, Sr. The race is expected to be one of the most expensive and important in the country this year.
Will Cunningham 
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