Some weeks ago, we posted the picture below, and made a series of harsh comments about Senator Rick Santorum, his family, and everything for which he stands. Some of you wrote in to take VDB to task on behalf of the children: the girls, clearly not in control of their own destiny, and the poor youngest boy, whom we mocked in a moment of weakness and bile as the “Manchurian son.”

You have shamed us, and rightly so. Our vendetta is against the father, not the innocents. And we would like to apologize.

Additionally, we would like to express the hope that all of Santorum’s children grow up and throw off the shackles of his eerie Fundamentalism, and pursue careers that wedge in the old man’s heart like jagged shards of glass: Planned Parenthood Director, ACLU Attorney, Personal Assistant to Michael Moore or, in a best-case scenario, pool-boy to George Soros.

Fly, baby Santorums!

Fly while your father’s power is at low ebb!

But our purpose here today is a little less grand, actually: to alert VDB readers that Santorum has signed with the Philadelphia Inquirer, to write a political column to be titled, “The Elephant in the Room.”

Santorum will be multi-tasking, of course: he’ll continue as a fellow at the far-right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center, heading up a program called “America’s Enemies.”

(And lest you blue-staters think that “America’s Enemies” is merely a high-buck way to fear-monger, VDB should point out that Santorum also puts out a fun and light-hearted little e-newsletter each week called the “Weekly Threat Round-Up.”)

The Santorum op-ed column begins in early November, and runs alternating Thursdays.

We here at The Vermont Daily Briefing will be following developments in the situation room, and will update you as necessary. If Rick plans to be the elephant in the room, consider us the mahout.

And we don’t plan to spare the spurs, believe you VDB.