Josh Marshall's teaser title to this, "Like Flypaper for Stupid", is perfect! ~ this confirms that "delusions of grandeur" can/should join "missing comprehension gene" on the list of shared GOP/TPer identifiers ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
Santorum: Fight Against Obamacare Like Fight Against Apartheid
Dylan Scott – December 6, 2013, 9:43 AM EST

Rick Santorum said Thursday that Nelson Mandela had fought against "some great injustice" -- apartheid -- just as Republicans are fighting against the great injustice of Obamacare.

“He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives -- and Obamacare is front and center in that,” Santorum said Thursday in an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

O'Reilly had opened the conversation by saying that, though Mandela was a "communist," he was still "a great man. What he did for his people was stunning," continuing that he was still able to respect him despite their different political views. O'Reilly then asked Santorum why the Republican Party wasn't able to resolve its ideological differences with the same respect.

"Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice and was willing to pay a huge price for that, and that's the reason he's mourned today," Santorum said. "But you're right, what he was advocating for wasn't necessarily the right answer."

He then compared Mandela's decades-long struggle against apartheid with the Republican effort to stop Obamacare.

The full video is below.


h/t Mediate

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rick-santorum-nelson-mandela-obamacare-apartheid

Mandela was not a communist.

You sure of that Mac?
I can look it up if you like, but a friend of mine (and an ex-student) with a PhD in Economic History and Politics reckons he was. We were discussing it just yesterday.

yep. he basically handed all of the diamond mines over to the white minority when he became president, rather than nationalizing them. i think it was a terrible mistake.

if your friend was referring to the fact that the ANC took USSR support, that is absolutely true. as i like to mention, when you are oppressed, you don't have a lot of choices in terms of who you get support from.

Mandela was a classical liberal. i have studied him for over (30) years. he was in no way a communist. that having been said, he was very skeptical of Western Style Capitalism's ability to deliver anything other than oppression to black South Africa- for very good reason.

Now we have to decide who to believe, Macro or O'Reilly.

That's the easiest decision I've had to make all year. Let's just say I put more trust in the guy who isn't on Fox News.

My friend was talking about him at the beginnings of the ANC.
He put him in the same category as Ho Chi Minh and Castro as "nationalists/communists". I think there's an element of truth there, although I tend more towards your view.

(And they wouldn't let him NEAR Fox news John).
Part of the difference is that neither me or he think "communist" is a pejorative term.

There is a fair amount of evidence that he was a member of the South African Communist Party. Whether he was actually a communist or not is a different story. Many people join political movements not because they follow the ideology but because they more strongly oppose the other party's ideology or actions. Once he was freed and became South Africa's political leader he certainly didn't do anything communisty.

interestingly enough, even Newsmaxx agrees with us.

Isn't anyone who isn't a frothingrightwingnut a communist?

That would be my question too, Oskar.

i argue this point all of the time on other boards. THEIR answer is "no", despite the twisting and convulsions.

moderate = communist
liberal = communist