It seems as though the Republican presidential-nomination race has come down to a contest between the wind-up Ken Doll (Wind me up, and I’ll tell you something different from the last time you wound me up — it’s the American business way) and the Spanish Inquisition candidate.

Well, tally-ho.

OK, to be fair (which is difficult for me), Rick Santorum probably does not support the Spanish Inquisition. It only seems like it some days.

And also to be fair (that’s the word of the day, apparently), Santorum does seem to have an — what’s the fair word? — interest in other people’s sex lives.

It’s a bit creepy.

Though not so creepy as Rush Limbaugh.

I generally don’t get much of a rush out of Rush. I mean, he’s Rush Limbaugh; he wouldn’t be more interesting if his name were Rush Limburger (not to insult the inhabitants of Limburg, which I am sure is quite interesting, or at least as interesting as a former European duchy can be).

And I don’t really care if Rush is now on his third or fourth wife (kind of like former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, one of the authors of the Defense of Marriage Act, who is also on his third or fourth wife — that’s defending marriage, all right) or that Rush makes tons of gelt being outrageous.

But Rush stepped over the line of being outrageous recently when he called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut," a "prostitute," and a "round-heel."

(A "round-heel"? I checked my heels, or at least as much as one can check one’s heels — yeah, they’re kinda round. Does that make me a slut and a prostitute, too? How about you? Your heels kinda round? Seems we’re all in the same boat — if life is a boat. Physicists would probably tell us different — but then, physicists are always telling us something different. How’s that faster-than-the-speed-of-light thing coming, anyway?)

To be fair (that word again) to Rush, here are his words:

"[Fluke] goes before a Congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."

Um, right. Fluke actually just wanted her health insurance to cover contraception. If health insurance covers, say, Viagra, just to pick a name out of the hat, why shouldn’t it cover contraception?

And why are older, white, conservative males so concerned about other people’s sex lives? I thought you guys were all about small government and personal liberty.

Rush went on, of course, in the way only he can, contending that insuring birth control would be another "welfare entitlement." Right, except that the government wouldn’t provide it, so it would be neither welfare nor an entitlement. (What kind of pills is this guy taking these days?)

(And where can the rest of us get them?)

Rush wasn’t quite finished (he never is). He suggested that Fluke videotape her sexual encounters and let us all see. Or, in his words: "We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

Is that beyond creepy, or is it just me?

In contrast, Mitt Romney and Santorum seem like normal, everyday sort of guys (which is about the only time I’ll use the words "Mitt Romney" and "Santorum" and "normal," "everyday" in the same sentence).

Yeah, I know; Rush apologized. But only after his advertisers started fleeing en masse (rats from a sinking ship comes to mind, not to slur the advertisers).

(Or the rats of the world.)

Not to rush to judgment or anything.