For a smart guy, Andrew Sullivan sure says some dumb things. Like this, where he sarcastically refers to Rick Santorum's latest attack on Bob Casey as "Christianism in its finest hour." Please.

We can all agree Santorum is getting desperate. And if you look at the chart of the RCP Average for the PA Senate race it's easy to see why: on September 1, Santorum was at 40%. Today, just eight days from the election, he's still at 40%. Nothing Santorum has tried over the last eight weeks has moved the needle at all.

Sullivan might have had a point if Santorum had said something akin to Katherine Harris's "if you don't elect Christians you're legislating sin" remark - and I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that Santorum goes there in the next week. But so far, he hasn't. Santorum's over-the-top attacks on Casey are about national security - the most salient issue Republicans have left on the table this year - and Sullivan makes a fool of himself by trying to fit such a square peg into the round, "Christianist" hole he's created.

So, too, does Sullivan like to smear the GOP as the party of bigots and homophobes. There is significantly more resistance to gay marriage on the right than the left, for sure, so Sullivan's characterization is correct in the broadest, most general sense. But take a look at the results from the latest Newsweek poll which breaks down the question of gay marriage and you'll see that one out of every three self-described Democrats and Independents is against any legal recognition for homosexuals whatsoever:

15. There has been much talk recently about whether gays and lesbians should have the legal right to marry someone of the same sex. Which of the following comes closest to your position on this issue? Do you... Support FULL marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, or support gay civil unions or partnerships, BUT NOT gay marriage, or do you oppose ANY legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples?

	Marriage Rights	Civil Unions	No Legal Recognition
TOTAL	24	26	40
Republicans	9	27	58
Democrats	34	23	33
Independents	24	32	33

Note, too, that by combining the Republican responses you find that just over one out of every three self-described Republicans favors either full marriage rights for gays or civil unions. Given that I generally consider myself part of this libertarian-minded group, I find the constant use of broad, smearing strokes by a polemicist of Sullivan's caliber to be about as effective as a brain surgeon wielding a butterknife.