No cookies this week for Ben Stein from Mitt

From a reader comes this battlefield report that he  labeled "Friendly Fire", as told to 
Fox:

:

Santorum: I don't care about the jobless

IF YOU ARE WONDERING how Rick Santorum is breaking new ground as a pretender to the White House throne, check his latest toxic reference to people who are out of work:

"I don't care what the unemployment rate is going to be. It doesn't matter to me. My campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment."

He said what?!?!? Yep, that was how he reacted to Mitt Romney's frequent references to being highly qualified to preside over America's economy. And that was a single day before the Illinois primary.

But we shouldn't be misled by Santorum's daring, finger-pointing assault on his opponents - particularly Romney's Mormonism, which some people argue is a cult below the reach of Christianity.

Fact is, Santorum is practicing his Catholicism as a cult, much of which he has developed from his close association with Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic society of true believers. The former Pennsylvania senator leaves no doubt that his heated religious war on secularism - which embraces a war on contraceptives, women's health and pandemic pornography - has given him cover to utter his maniacal indifference to the unemployed and human decency.

(For the full story on Santorum and Opus Dei, you can find it in today's online Washington Post.)

Meantime, keep in mind that Santorum's wife Karen says that her hubby is running for president because it's God's will. Sorry, but Sarah Palin and Rick Perry, two dead-end ex-candidates, also told us that God willed them to run.

If that were so, the Lord led these people away from the promised land.

How the wealthy try to dwarf a party

WITH ALL OF the awful news about how slowly the economy is recovering, I decided to check out some purchases to release some of my own pent-up frustration. Besides, as you probably have heard, now's the time for all good patriots to buy - anything.

An ad for a luxury condo on the 76th floor of a new high-rise in Manhattan strained my budget with a price of $16.8 million but it did offer such amenities as a second bathroom, health club, newspaper delivery at your door, running water and a superb view of the bus stop on the next block. The broker also offered immediate financing with monthly payments of not quite $18,000. But when I arrived at the place, there was a line nearly two blocks long of men in black suits and wingtip shoes, many of whom were grumbling about President Obama's unwarranted tax policies that punished the wealthiest Americans. "Wherever he was born did they think money grows on trees?" one of them huffed as he tried to slip ahead of 10 other potential buyers.

Figuring I had no chance in that puffed-up crowd of hedge funders, I decided to switch my cash to something I had always wanted - a Rolls Royce Corniche that was advertised in the Wall Street Journal for a limited time offer of $380,000. But by the time I found the show room, the convertible had been sold. "Sorry, fella," the dealer said, feigning a Rolls dealer's sympathy. "I could have sold a dozen Corniches in the past hour. You gotta be quick when you're reaching for your wallet against the Wall Street guys. A lot of these folks are looking for a dependable family car these days."

OK. I was disappointed, so it was time for Plan C. I had an eye on a spiffy Hargrave Custom Yacht after my last bonus and found one for $9.6 million. Again, too late. The dealer said he could have sold blah, blah blah.

Being of sound mind, I decided not to imitate the Morgan Stanley Trader (since fired, reports the New York Times) ) who tried to hire a dwarf for an ugly bachelor party stunt! Those guys on millionaires row are really a kick, wouldn't you say? But to be fair about it, they did want to create a job for a dwarf, no matter the cost.

On the way home I stopped at my favorite drive-in for a hamburger and fries, then drove off to a garage to have the mysterious rattle in my 18-year-old station wagon checked out. It was nothing more than something called auto arthritis, I was told.

The simple moral of all of this comes from the genius who first said that the rich are different from the rest of us because they have more money. The only thing we can add to that in today's political climate is that the very, very rich now have friends in congress to protect their need to own a Corniche or two and hire a dwarf. For ego therapy, of course.