Further checking required

If true, this will be the sign that U2 have lost it (SEE UPDATE!). A story on the website Newsmax, sourced to ... er ... Newsmax, says that Bono and the lads are playing at a $1,000 a head fundraiser for endangered Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in Philadelphia this weekend:

The thousand-dollar-a-seat concert has been put together by Sean and Ana Wolfington and will take place at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia in support of Santorum’s re-election, reports NewsMax's James Hirsen.

Now the absence of specific details in the story has us suspicious, but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Bono has fallen for Santorum's recent shtick of social justice conservative even amidst his own unique brand of pro-life cut-taxes-and-damn-the-poor economic policies, not to mention his ludicrous attempt to make people pay extra for the weather forecasts that their taxes already pay for in a giveaway to in-state private weather forecaster Accu-weather.

But no further commentary until there's better indication that the story is true.

UPDATE: OK, it looks like Newsmax is doing a dubious mix-and-match. U2's concert calendar does indeed show a gig in Philly on the 16th. Presumably Santorum's campaign is selling some premium seats for this event as a fundraiser, no endorsement either way implied.

ANOTHER UPDATE: While we were tentative from the start, National Review's The Corner got suckered, because of course they wanted it to be true:

BONO AND SANTORUM [John Podhoretz]
Watch as the heads of the editors of Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone, the Utne Reader, Spin, Vibe and the Hollywood geniuses at the Huffington Post simultaneously explode like in Scanners once they hear the news that rock god Bono is raising money for "man on dog" critic Santorum. Oh, the expression of humorless outrage from Andrew Sullivan, culminating in a demand that Bono withdraw from the concert, condemn torture and put money in his tip jar!

K-Lo finally notes the bogosity of the original story, but no update from Midgette yet.

FINAL UPDATE: A complete run-down from a website doing God's work in bashing Rick Santorum.

[WE LIED] FINAL UPDATE: Having fallen for the Ricky-U2 story, the Corner just can't give up:

HILLARY ROCK-EM CLINTON [KJL]
The junior senator from New York does the u2 fundraiser thing.

The "u2 fundraiser thing" being: buying a box for the event and then selling the tickets at a huge markup to one's rich friends. This has nothing to do with U2, and politicians have been doing this kind of thing for years, especially with sports events.