The Associated Press is reporting that, on Tuesday evening, Rick Santorum clarified his statement from this weekend that those who did not evacuate New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina should be penalized. After being criticized for the remark, Rick now says he wasn't speaking about people who didn't have the means to leave the city.
In a weekend interview with WTAE-TV about the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Santorum said: "You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."
On Tuesday night on WTAE, Santorum clarified his comments.
"Obviously most of the people here in this case, an overwhelming majority of people just literally couldn't have gotten out on their own," he said. "Many didn't have cars ... and that really was a failure on the part of local officials in not making transportation available to get people out."
Hmmmm, "local officials" eh Rick? Shocked, shocked we are to hear Rick blame local officials and not the Bush Administration. Didn't President Bush say that we shouldn't be playing the blame game?
