Listening to Casey was something akin to an attack of narcolepsy. Within seconds of opening his mouth you could almost see millions of Americans nodding off. If it weren't for Tim Russert jabbing us in the ribs every few minutes with barbed wire questions for both candidates, Casey's debating style would have induced slumber in even the most rabid anti-Santorum-ite.

Casey proved himself to be as boring as Santorum demonstrated himself to be completely out of his freakin' mind. What Santorum said about the War in Iraq Sunday bears repeating just so we can see the words on the printed page without the Sominex fog of Casey's voice droning over it:

"I think Secretary Rumsfeld has done a fine job (in Iraq) and the problems we are confronting are the problems of an enemy that is a very potent enemy, much more potent than I believe anybody anticipated.," Santorum said. "We have a great game plan. We go at it just like a football team. You go in there and you do your best. But the enemy can react and change its tactics, and they have, and they've been very very effective.. "

Do you believe this guy, talking about game plans, football analogies and an enemy that changes its tactics like defensive coordinators in the second half?! But there's more. Santorum continued:

" We need to go out there and continue to fight this war on Islamic fascism, not just as my opponant likes to focus on, just the war in Iraq. That's just a front in a multi-front war in which we are fighting against an enemy that is a very dangerous enemy. . .This is an enemy that uses a tactic that is a very effective tactic against us, called terror. Because they don't care about life and we do. And so when you match up those forces, people who don't put on uniforms, people who are willing to die for their cause, and want to die for their cause, makes this a very difficult enemy to fight, one that we haven't successfully fought in the past."

Imagine Rick Santorum as a member of the British Parliament in 1775 complaining about these pesky Continentals who shoot from behind trees and target officers instead of lining up against the greatest army in the world and fight like men..

And so, despite a "great game plan," who is at fault for our failure to win our "front" in Iraq. Santorum blames it all on Iran. "You can't ignore that we are fighting this war on multi fronts and Iraq is simply a front. And Iran, which is the principle stoker of this Shiite-Sunni sectarian violence, would like nothing more than to see the Iraqi democracy fail. .

".At the heart of this war is Iran. Iran is the problem here. Iran is the one causing most of the problems, obviously, with Israel today. Iran is the country we need to focus on in this war against Islamic fascism," Santorum said. In other words, we invaded the wrong country in March, 2003. American marines should have raced to Tehran, not Baghdad.

Santorum called the war in Iraq a "war of necessity." He said, "The question is, How do we cure Iraq? Focus on Iran."

Casey provided one moment that approached zingerhood when he suggested that Santorum's and the Bush administratioon's preferred terminology for what used to be called the "war on terrorism" and is now called the "war on Islamic fascism" when he suggested to his opponant that "after you get the terminology right, maybe you can have a seminar in Washington about whether (Osama) Bin Laden, who we should be finding and killing, whether he's a dead terrorist or a dead fascist?"

What was abundantly clear in this first televised debate between Santorum and Casey in the nationally-significant Pennsylvania senate race is that the election two months from now will be a referendum on how Pennsylvanians feel about the war in Iraq, and --who knows by November? -- maybe the war in Iran as well. Certainly we know where Santorum stands.