How badly did Rick Santorum not want to be confronted by a ravening pack of 14 antiwar protesters intent on —brace yourself!—delivering a peace petition to his office?

[The protesters lawyer] said the 14 were arrested before they even had the chance to deliver their declaration of peace to Santorum’s office. Four were arrested outside Santorum’s office and others were in the lobby or trapped in an elevator that stopped when security personnel turned off the power.

Oh yeah, they were all acquitted today. Some unknown but presumably substantial amount of police, legal, and judicial time which the city and county of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania could perhaps have devoted to, oh, say, things like crime (of which Philly has no shortage at present) was drivelled away on thwarting citizens’ civil rights.

I’d love to see these guys turn around and sue the shit out of Li’l Man-on-Dog Ricky, whose name is a byword everywhere canines fear to tread, for false arrest. Harassment? Violation of civil rights guaranteed under the Constitution? Hey, that’d make it a Federal rap, this would be all sorts of fun.

So what if the asshole (and I apologize to all rectums everywhere for the comparison) is no longer in office, he was at the time the offense was committed. I’d like to see a precedent on the books that just leaving (however involuntarily) public office does not absolve you of crimes committed while in office.

Our Fucking Favorite Founding Fathers (henceforth FFFF’s) had some pointed words to say, to the effect that the heads of rulers should never sit all that securely on their shoulders, and that the public should be ever alert and prepared to push back against those who would inflate their office into sinecures of tyranny.

And it would at very least distract Lil’ Ricky from whatever deviltry of the VRWC he’s currently wormed his way into. Let us stomp any dreams of a Nixonian reputation-rehab and return to “public service” he may be entertaining.