I’m old, but not so old that I don’t remember the fight against apartheid. I recall Ronald Reagan and the Republicans refusing to condemn the racist policies of South Africa, and how the US officially considered Mandela “a terrorist” until Clinton got into office. And I see where Dick Cheney still stands by that designation. Bill O’Reilly yesterday called Mandela “a Communist.”

But maybe I am being too harsh. After all, many of today’s Republicans weren’t in office back then, and we don’t know how they would have voted.

Still, I can’t help but be amused by Rick Santorum (yeah, I know, that’s a constant), who today likened the fight against Obamacare to the fight against apartheid.

Clearly! Logically! Why, the two are so identical, it’s easy to confuse them.

But even Rick can’t forgive Mandela for taking the radical view that black people and white people should live together in harmony. “Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice and was willing to pay a huge price for that, and that’s the reason he’s mourned today,” Santorum said. “But … what he was advocating for wasn’t necessarily the right answer.”

I suggest that Rick prove the comparison by spending 27 years in prison.