Last week, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Budoff, Rick Santorum claimed that he has publicly expressed concerns about President Bush's policies with regard to the war in Iraq.
That was not the first time Santorum made this claim. On August 10, 2005, Rick told NPR's Diane Rehm, "I have concerns, as everybody does - and I'm sure the President does - about how effective every aspect of this policy has been. And I've been critical of certain aspects of that policy." Here's the audio.
So, what's the problem? Well, as Carrie Budoff reports in today's Inquirer, Rick's office can't find any record of those public criticisms or concerns that Rick claims to have made. Seems like those statements weren't as public as Rick thought. Then again, perhaps Rick was thinking of the following public criticism that he leveled at military action undertaken by the President:
“[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
We can see how this might have confused him. However, he said that in March of 1999. It was a criticism of President Clinton's policy toward Bosnia.
Clearly, Rick can be critical of a President's military policies. We just have no evidence that he has been at all critical of President Bush.
What does Rick have to say about the missing public criticisms?
"I do a lot of interviews on TV, on radio, with print reporters who don't happen to write everything I say," Santorum said yesterday. "The fact that it hasn't turned up in print doesn't mean I haven't said it."
Yes, because when a loyal member of President Bush's own party makes a statement to a reporter that is critical of the President's Iraqi War policy, any reporter with even a little bit of sense would know that isn't newsworthy and make sure to leave it out of their story. Look how little media attention Senator Hagel has gotten recently.
C'mon Rick.
