National Review makes a half-hearted attempt to defend Santorum against Ron Paul’s charge of corruption, then throws in the towel:
I agree with you that for the Paul team to cite the leftist CREW in the way they did was a low blow, and the rest of the commercial comes with the usual attack ad trimmings. At the same time, it makes a fair point in contrasting Santorum’s current attempts to create an aw shucks outsider image with the actual Beltway reality…. Was I terribly surprised? Unfortunately not: it’s how American government currently works and, Santorum is, for good or bad, ultimately a government guy.
Which is, of course, the entire point. Santorum is “ultimately a government guy”. He is ultimately a corrupt phony who is just as much a creature of the Bank Party’s status quo as Romney, Gingrich, or Obama. He’s not an alternative to Romney, he is simply yet another variant.