Rick Santorum's Latest Attack on Mitt Romney April 4, 2012, 2:39 pm A health care legacy that bears striking resemblance to the one Obama is currently defending to the Supreme Court. Views on explosive issues like gay marriage and abortion that are opaque at best. The Etch a Sketch remark. There are still so many legitimate ways that Rick Santorum can attack Mitt Romney. Why would he bother lying? Yet that's exactly what he did in his latest attack ad. It ran before yesterday's Wisconsin primary (which Mr. Santorum lost, anyway). He lied about almost everything. Let's count the ways. "What if I told you this man's big-government-mandating health care included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs, would you ever vote for him?" asks a benign-looking blond lady in red, for republican. (They show a photo of President Obama because the gimmick is that they act like they're going to talk about President Obama, but really it's Mitt Romney. Get it?) She continues, "What if I told you he supported radical environmental job-killing cap and trade and the Wall Street bailouts? And what if I told you he dramatically raised taxes and stuck taxpayers with a $1 billion shortfall? Naturally, images of conservative rallying points like fetuses and windmills abound. As Jeremy W. Peters reports in The Times, "Mr. Santorum is not the first to misleadingly tie Massachusetts's public funding of abortions to Mr. Romney." But while the state does cover abortions under Medicaid, it has done so since a court decision dating from 1981. Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts in 2003, which falls after 1981, except maybe on the Santorum calendar, or perhaps the Mayan calendar. Then there's the matter of jobs. When Romney began his tenure as governor, he'd inherited a massive budget gap and an economy that was hemorrhaging jobs. Sound familiar? By the time he left, the state was adding jobs and had a budget surplus, all without raising sales or income taxes. I'd say Rick Santorum jumped the shark with this one, but that happened a long time ago and he keeps on swimming.