THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Even a failed Senator and Radical presidential candidate like Ricky Santorum gets fan mail. And one of the letters that has come to light is from every Radical Conservative's favorite fan boy, Satan himself. Having been "discovered" by Ricky, Old Scratch goes on to explain what he intends to do.

My goal is and always has been fairly simple. I will use Americans to kill the idea of America.

Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. A whole government dedicated to the proposition that we are equal in dignity and worth. That we are equal under the law. That we each have the right to find our own way in the world. Troubling stuff, you know? My only aim these past two hundred years has been to make certain that there is not one person anywhere on the earth who believes you really mean it. You will become such an ugly portrait of hypocrisy and cruelty that people will reject these ideas you had the good fortune to discover. And then will come the old familiar darkness.

I'm not ready to declare Mission Accomplished just yet. I'm not an idiot. But soon. And -- here is where you just crack me up, Rick -- I'm not really using college professors and TV starlets to win this war. I'm using you, my dear. From Cotton Mather to the modern GOP, this country has always been chock-full of people who say they believe in liberty... but are willing to make exceptions. Ah, the exceptions. The details. Kind of my thing, really. You all believe in rights for people who act like you and think like you, and you're all trying to stomp on everyone different, and you haven't yet noticed that means you don't believe in rights at all. Rights only mean something if you want them for the other guy. If they're just for you, they're demands. Stupid, petulant demands from a superstitious loudmouth who is proud, yes proud, of his ignorance and his bigotry and his complete hostility to education and compassion and tolerance. I needed an army of you people. Instead I found a nation.

And everyone in Hell gets a sweatervest.