By definition, religious fundamentalists genuinely believe that their take on God and humanity is the ultimate truth. That might be an emotionally satisfying place to be for someone of limited sophistication and intellect, but its a very dangerous place to be if you are a politician.

In spite of the political riskiness of proclaiming his truth as, the truth, Rick Santorum has never shied away from sitting in judgment of those who don’t share his religious values or perspective. Speaking to a crowd at a campaign rally on Friday, Santorum announced:

The “president’s agenda” is “not about you,” he said. “It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.”

The predominately conservative crowd roared their approval.

Then of course, Santorum’s campaign team went into damage control. Knowing full well that the conservative Catholic presidential candidate had just publicly raised the specter of Barack Obama not being a ‘real’ Christian, his National Communications Director, Hogan Gidley quickly got out a statement to the media:

“The President says he’s a Christian and Rick believes that and has even said so publicly many times. Rick was talking about the President’s belief in the secular theology of government and how believing that theology is dangerous because government theology teaches that it’s perfectly fine to take away our God-given rights and freedoms.”

Speaking Sunday morning on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Santorum himself tried a little sanctimonious damage control of his own:

“I accept the fact that the president is a Christian. But when you have a world view that elevates the Earth above man and says we can’t take those resources because its going to harm the Earth, it’s just all an attempt to centralize power and give more power to the government.”