Is Ricky Insane?

Seriously.

Today Ricky spoke at the Pennsylvania Press Club and gave a history lesson on Islamofascistnaziliberals:

Santorum told Pennsylvania Cable Network viewers and a crowd of lobbyists, reporters and insiders that the current war on terrorism is a new front in a conflagration raging since the Crusades. He said the puppeteers were a 1,000-year-plus lineage of radical Shia mullahs trying to overthrow the West.

[...]

“Remember, as I mentioned before, for 1,000 years, the East and West fought, up until 1683, which was the high-water mark of Islam into Europe. It wasn’t in Greece or Turkey; it wasn’t in Italy or Spain; it was in the heart of Europe – it was in Vienna.

“In 1683, not that long ago, the Islamists had surrounded the gates of Vienna and were on the verge of toppling it after a siege; ... but the West united, and led by the Poles, [King] John Sobieski and the Polish Hussars defeated [the Arab forces] in a one-day battle on the plains outside Vienna.

So far so good. Now Ricky goes off the rails:

“What was the high-water mark of this 1,000-year war? It was the day before. What was the date the day before? Sept. 11, 1683.”

Then, linking that nearly 323-year-old battle to Sept. 11, 2001, and the war the United States and its allies are now waging to the Crusades, Santorum said of the radical Shia mullahs and their followers: “They know their history; they know what they’re about; and they know what they want to accomplish.”

[...]

If this were The History Channel, Santorum’s yarn would get fiercely debunked. For one thing, those Crusades, the 1,000 years of wars Santorum mentioned, were fueled as much by European invasions and attacks eastward, as by Islamic attacks or incursions westward.

Also, the armies that Sobieski kicked out of Vienna were not radical Islamists led by Shia radicals, but rather the Ottoman Empire.

Insane. Utterly insane.

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