Immigration

Rick Santorum, who might have been a priest if he had not fallen so low as to become a politician, started the theologification of the campaign with loose talk about doctrinal issues best expounded in cathedral and chapel. But the devil talk of the past fortnight began as the work of the minions of the mainstream media who have no idea of what they're talking about. The only thing they know about the concept of Satan is something they picked up trick-or-treating.

It was one of these minions who discovered remarks Mr. Santorum made four years ago to chapel students at Ave Maria University, a small Roman Catholic school in Florida. He told the students that "Satan has his sights on the United States of America," and is "attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all the strong plants so deeply rooted in the American tradition."

Newt Gingrich goes over the top to fly off to the moon. Herman Cain goes over the top to buy a pizza for all the lovely ladies. Mitt Romney goes over the top to destroy his opponents, piece by piece. Ron Paul has gone far over the top to live on a distant star in splendid isolation.

Rick Santorum is breaking out of the trenches for a leap at the top, emboldened by winning semi-important caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a more or less meaningless primary in Missouri. He recognizes how President Obama put the First Amendment in mortal peril with his order to religious institutions to put conscience aside and obey secular gospel under pain of law, like it or not. Then it was "over the top" in pursuit of principle.

He's getting a bigger fight than he imagined.

Condoms were once limited to dispensing machines in men's rooms in bus stations and truck stops ("Sold for the Prevention of Disease Only"). This sometimes confused teenage boys who thought condoms were made for preventing something else. But nearly everybody knew you didn't talk about condoms in polite grown-up company.

Newt Gingrich, under siege by ex-wives and trying hard to keep track of the various versions of an autobiography-in-progress, nevertheless soldiers on in his mission to restore family values and "morality" to the nation.

Ever the deep thinker of big thoughts, Newt may be looking for a getaway as critics retrieve highlights of his checkered past. He recalled this week in Cocoa Beach how he had once introduced something called the Northwest Ordinance for Space, the "weirdest thing" he had ever done. But he stands by what it called for, though accounts of his remarks sound like satire. With Newt, you never know.

The Republicans have pretty much put to rest the canard that only Democrats know how to have fun. Herman Cain furnished pizza with really crispy crust and Rick Santorum even brought condoms back into the conversation. Rick Perry became an Aggie joke. Newt Gingrich has given an entirely new meaning to "baggage call."

Any upright Mormon would look dull and colorless in a crowd like this one.

The authentic story of the redeeming power of the Christmas message is illustrated in the incredible life of an English slaver named John Newton, born 300 years ago into a seafaring family in England. His mother was a godly woman who died when John was 7, and he recalled as the sweetest remembrance of childhood the soft and tender voice of his mother at prayer.

His father married again, and John at 11 went to sea with him. He eagerly adopted the vulgar life of seamen as he grew older, though the memory of his mother's faith remained. “I saw the necessity of religion as a means of escaping hell,” he recalled many years later, “but I loved sin.”

We suffer from too much of everything. The search for the new thing, for passion, thrills and excitement finally becomes what the French, who have a suggestive name for everything, call "ennui." In plain English, the excess of excess is ultimately boring.

The excess of entertainment swallows up all. You could watch trashy movies, mindless sit-coms and other television perversions 24/7, and a lot of people do. Sports is the national drug. There were sighs of relief at the prospect there might not be a professional basketball season this year, when the owners and players couldn't get together on how to co-ordinate their greed, and sighs of disappointment when a half-season was salvaged. Soon the college football bowl season will be here, with so many "classics" that only the worst teams can escape bowls celebrating pizza, home mortgages, auto mufflers, fried chicken and even hunger. (We ran out of fruits, flowers and vegetables to commemorate.)

But not so long ago, wife-collecting was regarded as over the line. Cats do it, dogs do it and even educated fleas are said to conduct serial impermanent romances. But presidents were held to a tougher moral standard.

Newt Gingrich, the latest Republican flavor of the fortnight, is testing the theory that Americans have outgrown making such moral judgments about politicians and their amours. Nelson Rockefeller thought he was on his way to the White House in 1964 when he divorced his blueblood wife to marry a lady named Happy. This was a mighty scandal, as difficult as that may seem to our randy, rowdy and enlightened age, but Mr. Rockefeller was regaining traction in the primary campaign when Happy birthed their child on the eve of the California primary. Barry Goldwater won a narrow victory and the rest, like Nelson Rockefeller, is forgotten history. Mr. Goldwater was swallowed in a November landslide, but his candidacy reshaped both his party and the nation's politics.

Jerry Sandusky, the onetime defensive co-ordinator of the Nittany Lions who is accused of raping little boys in the shower, is gone, perhaps to be measured for prison stripes. Joe Paterno, the head coach at Penn State for 46 years and a legend in college football second only to Bear Bryant (and maybe Amos Alonzo Stagg), is gone, too. His reputation lies in tatters as the years close in on a celebrated life. Lesser officials at Penn State, including the president of the university, are gone, too, doomed to spend the next few years with their lawyers.

But the system remains intact, and more scandal is surely inevitable. The big universities have become entertainment companies, like Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros., with similar ethical and moral codes. They're pursuing the same dollars with the same passion and the same lack of commercial constraint. What would Hollywood be without sex, scandal, shame and calumny? It's what makes Sammy run.

Herman Cain doesn't look like Jack the Ripper, but Scotland Yard never pursued Mr. Ripper with the passion of the newspapers and television networks so hot after Mr. Cain. He may be guilty of whatever it is that he is accused of -- so far little more than a wink, a predatory smile, or even a suggestive smirk. Or he may not be guilty. But in the wonderland of Washington journalism, we demand the verdict first and only then the evidence (if any).

"Sexual harassment" has been established as a crime that only the accuser is entitled to define, and then at her lawyer's convenience. The accused is not necessarily entitled to know who accuses him, or even to know what he is accused of. The crime is so heinous that the mere accusation is enough to convict. Why waste time on evidence?