Paranoiac Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has been making the rounds, promoting his just-published screed, "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good." I've seen him on "The Daily Show," where Jon Stewart tried to pin him down -- but failed -- on whether two guys getting married really poses such a threat to the Republic, and, tonight, on "Hardball," where Chris Matthews tossed softballs worthy of Santorum's publisher's publicist.

This is a book you can judge by its cover: It looks like a church window (Santorum adheres to a strict style of Catholicsm), with a stained glass design approximating a cross and a '50s style illustration of a nuclear family at its center. The premise of the book, as described by the Washington Post, is that "the family unit, rather than the federal government, that should make up the foundation of a fair society."

What an astonishing idea.

But so goes the Republican's fear campaign. They work day and night trying to convince Americans that a.) the family is under attack by insidious liberal-minded forces; b.) Christianity is under attack by insidious liberal-minded forces; and c.) government is bad.

Their anxiety seems to stem from the fact that not all Americans agree with them all the time. Sure, we've handed Republicans the keys to all three branches of government (which has grown explosively under their anti-government leadership), but this has done nothing to assuage them. As long as there are gay people who long for recognition of their committed relationships, as long as there are women who wish not to bear children, their way of life is threatened. And they deeply believe that their way of life should be everyone's.

That way of life, by the way, should seem vaguely familiar -- you've seen it on TV. As Rick said in a Washington Post-sponsored online chat:

"Growing up in the 1950's and 1960's was far different from growing up in this decade. The culture, the neighborhoods, the values that were being fed through the popular culture and the educational establishments were far different from now. The world was different and far more nurturing to families. Can you imagine a show today entitled Father Knows Best?"

Never mind that the Father in "Father Knows Best" was an alcoholic who tried to kill himself in his garage. Or that the girl who played the younger daughter became a heroin addict. Conservatives want to return us to those thrilling days of a values-filled yesteryear that never existed, when men were wise, women cooked and cleaned in pearls, mental illness and drug abuse were never discussed and blacks knew their place. Or got lynched.

The good old days.

Sen. Rick, when he's not watching Nick at Night, is deeply fearful of working women. He says that two-parent families with mom staying at home offers kids the best chance of a healthy upbringing. He may be right. But it's irrelevant. As we know, many women have to work if their families are to survive. Rick blames this on taxes. "On average," he said in his online chat, "the second wage earner is working simply to pay the increased burden the federal government has put on the family."

What Rick doesn't explain is how the Bush tax cuts he voted for haven't solved that problem. (Oh, right, those went mainly to the rich, while the middle class got $300 checks.)

Even more perplexing is that Rick thinks stay-at-home moms get no respect in our culture. I would suggest that, these days, they get more than that -- namely, envy.

Another of Rick's pathological phobias: gay marriage, which he describes, as most Republicans do, as a threat to "the traditional family." But I've yet to hear him explain exactly what the threat is. Does Rick think that when a gay couple moves into the neighborhood, a mass epidemic of homosexuality breaks out? That little Johnny and Suzy will quit the football team and cheerleading squad and start antiquing? That Mommy and Daddy will start renting gay pornos instead of the straight kind?

Maybe Rick explains it in his book. Maybe I should read it.

Nah. Everything I need to know about Rick and his hateful, bitter ilk can be summed up in a scene from "Father Knows Best," where knowing father tells dutiful son, "Look, son, let me give you a tip -- cling to your youth. Time has a way of moving forward, never backward -- stay with it as long as you can."

Time moves forward. Society makes progress.

If only conservatives could live with father's advice, and not try to haul us all back to their warped conception of the good old days.