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"There's a denial of this problem," says the ex-senator, who speaks today.
By Thomas Fitzgerald
Inquirer Staff Writer

As it became apparent that Sen. Rick Santorum was going to lose his reelection race last fall, he diverged from the usual campaign stump fare to give dire warnings about the "gathering storm" of Islamic extremism.  His consultants and supporters panicked, urging Santorum instead to focus instead on his record of delivering federal largesse to the state, but he had found his voice - and his issue.

Talking about the threat of Islamic terrorism is now Santorum's main occupation, though the Republican sounds laid-back these days. He is pitching a movie idea to Hollywood and laughed off speculation about a political comeback in Pennsylvania.  Tonight, Santorum is scheduled to speak on terrorism at both the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University as part of the nationwide "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," a series of campus events organized by neoconservative thinker David Horowitz.

"It's not a coincidence this is being done on college campuses," Santorum said yesterday in an interview. "There's a denial of this problem. You see academics and Muslim student associations that want to shut down discussion of the fact that the enemy is using Islam as a rallying cry for terrorism."

That "political correctness" extends to the White House, Santorum said.  "The 'war on terror' is a fallacy," he said. "We don't want to focus on who the enemy really is."

Since leaving the Senate nine months ago, Santorum has worked as a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington think tank. He is writing a book on radical Islam, works as a consultant to the Pittsburgh-based Eckert, Seamans law firm, and is a commentator on the Fox News Channel.  [Santorum also will begin writing an op-ed column for The Inquirer next month, alternating weeks with George E. Curry, the former editor in chief of Emerge magazine and former Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.]

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