Please tell me that I didn’t just step out of  a time machine. I guess I probably didn’t travel too far back in time, given we’re talking about Republicans in the 2012 GOP Clown Car cycle, because this is what Rick Santorum said just yesterday in an interview with CNN’s John King about the Pentagon considering relaxing rules regarding women and frontline roles in combat.

“Look, I want to create every opportunity for women to be able to serve this country, and they do so in an amazing and wonderful way. They’re a great addition to the – and have been for a long time – to the armed services of our country,” Santorum said. “But I do have concerns about women in frontline combat.”

He added, “I think that can be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved. And I think that’s probably – you know, it already happens, of course, with the camaraderie of men in combat. But I think it would be even more unique if women were in combat. I think that’s probably not in the best interests of men, women or the mission.”

Excuse me? What is he talking about — PMS? That women are too emotional generally? Who knows, he didn’t have an explanation, any studies to cite, nothing remotely resembling facts. Given that men are just as governed by their hormones (witness the inability of so many pols to keep their zippers up), why doesn’t the idea that testosterone renders some men incapable of handling a mission if their “little brains” are in control?

I’m just sick of it – women in this cycle are seen as obstacles to growing the economy, incapable of making decisions about whether she should bear children, and now, harboring some unspecified emotions that render them incapable of serving in more frontline roles in our armed forces. You’d think  these Republicans had no capable, competent, strong women in their personal and professional lives to blow up these stereotypes. In Santorum’s case, he cannot even explain why he thinks this, what it’s based on other than his imagination (and it’s a sad imagination at that).

Why are women in the bullseye of disrespect, scorn and outright hate? Are some men so insecure (and at such a heightened level of personal and political anxiety) that seeing women — with our differences and commonalities — as entities that they simply cannot psychologically deal with? It comes across as a distinct insecurity — as if the power of the va-jay-jay, the uterus and breasts are shriveling their manhood by the second and they need to somehow reclaim it/reassert it. Otherwise how can you explain garbage like this? It doesn’t even fall into the realm of intellectual discourse at this point.

Maybe Santorum was channeling his fellow Clown Car occupant Newt Gingrich, who was way ahead of Man-On-Dog in this arena.

If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don’t have upper body strength.
– Newt, during an address, “Renewing American Civilization,” Reinhardt College, (7 January 1995)

UPDATE: Hahahaha…this AM Santorum tries to clean up his mess on the Today show, saying he was talking about the emotions of MEN, getting distracted because they want to protect the women. Sorry, Rick this doesn’t help matters:

“When you have men and women together in combat, I think men have the emotions when you see a woman in harm’s way. I think that’s something that’s natural, that’s very much in our culture to be protective,” he said. According to the presidential candidate, the “natural inclination to not focus on the mission but to try to be in a position where you might want to protect someone” could compromise men’s ability to stay focused, and the very reason that the Israeli military doesn’t allow women to serve in combat roles.”

Related:
* Lactating boobies in the workplace will kill job creation (and other signs of the womanapocalypse)