Jeffrey Lord outdoes himself:

The week that the nation is be celebrating Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday — that would be February 6 — Rick Santorum has selected that exact moment to present himself as the anti-Reagan?

What terrible offense did Santorum commit? He described Gingrich’s silly moon colony idea as “fiscal insanity,” which is what it is. When others pointed out Gingrich’s past criticisms of actual Reagan policies that he made while Reagan was in office, Lord thought that it was an outrageous “smear” being conducted by Romney’s lackeys. To paraphrase Lord’s response: “How dare anyone suggest that Gingrich was critical of Reagan! What job was Romney offering Gingrich’s critics that they would say such a thing?” Now that Santorum has the temerity to criticize a preposterous Gingrich proposal with no relation to the space program as it existed under Reagan, we’re supposed to believe this is proof that Santorum has taken up the “anti-Reagan” mantle because he doesn’t believe in wasting an enormous amount of money on a lunar colony. That is the litmus test Lord wants to use to determine a candidate’s conservatism?

What’s more, Lord accuses Santorum of insulting the memory of the astronauts killed in the Challenger explosion. I’m no fan of Santorum, but that’s a completely unfair and obnoxious charge to make. It’s even more offensive when Lord describes Santorum’s criticism as evidence of “a crabbed, timid, fainthearted, decidedly un-conservative and un-American state of mind.” So Santorum isn’t just being anti-Reagan, but also un-American? That’s delusional. If Lord’s two positions have anything in common besides a desire to defend Newt Gingrich at all costs, I don’t see it.