Public Domain U.S. Congressional portrait, now with added santorum.
Now that former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum wants to seek the Republican nomination for President, he’s going to have to face down the ugly fact that his name has been splattered everywhere, and not even a case of chuck pads, a few old bath towels and a bucket of old T-shirts will absorb all this stuff and get it sopped up away the consciousness of America.
I’m referring, of course, to the fact that, back in 2003, gay sexuality activist and advice columnist Dan Savage responded to then-Senator Santorum’s offensive sentiments on homosexuality by proposing that the slang term “Santorum” be coined to describe some particularly foul, bizarre or deviant sexual act or thing. Savage put the question to his readers, who settled on a substance: to put it politely, “Santorum” describes the “adulterated” leavings of intimate lubricant sometimes remaining when a person(s) engage(s) in anal intercourse, particularly of the excessively vigorous type, or that involving an egg beater. It’s frothy, just like the Senator.
You could say this was some sort of “protest,” or a volley in the “culture wars,” or fighting fire with fire. It is all those things…but come on. Savage did this just to be a dick…er…an asshole…er…a big meanie. And what a job he did! Google that shit and find out. Er…that is to say, Google “Santorum.”
Or don’t, and just take my word for it that no rendition of Santorum’s name will get you anything that doesn’t want to make me heave my cookies. Here’s what Roll Call, the Capital Hill news organ, said about the subject:
Those search results…[created] a meme that helped now-Sen. Bob Casey (Pa.) unseat Santorum in 2006, and, ultimately, one that makes Santorum’s presidential hopes laughable in some circles.
Roll Call asked Santorum why he didn’t reach out to Google to try to remedy the problem. He said he never contacted the search giant directly, and his longtime consultant John Brabender dismissed the problem as a matter of free speech.
“There’s still the First Amendment,” Brabender said.
But Roll Call has learned that former staffers consulted technology experts years ago about their options. Ultimately, they found there was little they could do.
“You can bury anything on the Internet,” said David Urban, a Santorum ally and former chief of staff for former Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.). “But at what financial cost and at what political cost? You can bury a bad story. But how do you bury your own name?”
Well, anyone can buy Google ads tied to unfriendly searches, a tactic President Barack Obama’s campaign used to combat myths about his citizenship and religion. But any skilled Web user could deploy the same method Savage used — getting thousands of bloggers to link to a more complimentary site and take it viral.
[Link.]
“You can bury anything on the Internet” is perhaps the most dangerous sentiment a political candidate can have in this day and age. So’s the idea that a political consultant would confuse rights under the First Amendment and the right to free enterprise; businesses like Google lean on the latter constantly when censoring search results. You can’t bury anything on the internet…unless you’re Google.
But, hey, Senator. Run with that.