"Just when he seemed to take himself out, he pulled himself back in."

That's the lead graph in Steve Goldstein's Philadelphia Inquirer article, posted today after a Santorum breakfast with reporters.

Yes, even though Santorum said in an online chat with The Washington Post on Monday that his "intention" is not to run for president in 2008 -- today, he's backpedaling.

Goldstein quotes Santorum:

This flip-flopping on whether he'll run for president in 2008 seems relatively harmless, right?

But it isn't harmless when he does it over things like Amtrak funding (saying he'll fight the president on funding cuts on one day, and a few days later voting against an amendment that would have saved the funding). Just ask some of the 3,000 Pennsylvania Amtrak employees if they think his flip-flopping is harmless.

And it isn't harmless when he proposes a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice cases for us, but his wife sues a chiropractor for twice that amount, seeking $500,000 for her pain and suffering. Rick calls their lawsuit a "private family matter" -- this from the guy who believes the rest of us have no right to privacy.

Yeah, this may all seem harmless -- but it isn't. It's a very bad pattern.

Echoing Goldstein's piece, CNN ran a short bit on "Inside Politics" today (see below) -- and they promised to try to "pin Santorum down tomorrow on Inside Politics, when he's a guest." That's a lot of fun for them, but we'd sure like to see them "pin Santorum down" on some of his more egregious flip-flops, like those above.

Windows Media    Quicktime