“For Frodoooooooo!”

Um, far be it from me to criticize someone who uses Lord of the Rings analogies in a newspaper interview, but …

In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been focused on Iraq instead.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said. “It’s being drawn to Iraq and it’s not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don’t want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

Yes, but the Eye was being drawn off by a bold Alliance of the West, marching deliberately to Mordor on a suicide mission to keep Sauron distracted. Is that what Santorum is suggesting is going on? That our (and allied) troops are on a mission they know they can’t win but which they’ll die to the last man, if necessary, to carry out?

Um …

And, of course, all of this presupposes that there is an analog to Frodo and Sam, climbing up Mount Doom with the secret that can destroy the Bad Guys. Who are the Frodo and Sam that the Alliance is pinning its hopes on?

Goofy.