Santorum Exposed: The Blog - Entries from Thursday, September 29. 2005

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Thursday, September 29. 2005

Analysis of Santorum's book

In the October issue of The Progressive, Ruth Conniff provides a good analysis of It Takes a Family. Conniff does a nice job of pointing out a few glaring examples of the hypocrisy in Rick's book. Here's a quick example:

Santorum’s get-tough attitude on welfare reform, though, clashes rather dramatically with his every-life-is-precious anti-abortion stance. In one section of his book, he says liberals screwed up by trying to protect children born out of wedlock from cuts in welfare. Stigma and shame should attach to illegitimate births, he argues. But later he laments the high rate of abortion among poor, African American women.

Likewise, when he writes about a former welfare recipient whom he actually knows, his staff assistant Michelle, his admiration runs afoul of his policy prescriptions. He doesn’t seem to notice that Michelle’s success is the story of a woman who left her children’s father (a big no-no in Santorum’s book), got help in a publicly funded shelter (which he doesn’t support), and used welfare money to supplement her while she got a technical-college education (welfare recipients should be compelled to drop out of school and take the first job available, Santorum argues). Though he praises Michelle, most of her achievements result from choices Santorum opposes and has sponsored legislation to combat.

If you find it impossible to conceive of actually purchasing, much less reading, the book, you should give Conniff's article a read.

Posted by Brian in Santorum in the News at 21:04 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Message of the Market

Rick Santorum called in to "Imus in the Morning" yesterday. Imus mentioned that many copies of Rick's book were still on the shelves in book stores, and Rick defended his book's sales by saying that it was on the New York Times Best Sellers List for two weeks (video below). That got us to thinking...

Rick titled his book, It Takes a Family, as a dig at Hillary Clinton's, It Takes a Village. So how do the two books compare in terms of time spent on the NY Times Best Sellers List? Funny you should ask. Clinton's book was on the list for 20 weeks, and was #1 for three of them. Santorum's book was on the list for two weeks, and topped out at #13.

We know that Rick says he believes in the power of the free market. Hey Rick, the market is telling you something. Can you figure out what it's saying?

Oh, and during the clip Rick also claims, "I'm the man." Um, okay.

Here's the Imus video:

Windows Media Quicktime

Posted by Brian in Rick Santorum at 16:22 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

Rick the Righteous

Mike Newall writes a well-researched cover story on Rick in this week's Philadelphia City Paper. Here's one of the more interesting passages (be sure to read all the way to the bottom to see the picture of Rick from high school):

When she met Rick, Karen was living with Tom Allen, an OBGYN who in the early-1970s cofounded Pittsburgh's first abortion clinic. It was a somewhat unusual pairing. Allen was the doctor who delivered Karen. She began living with him while an undergraduate nursing student at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University. She was in her early 20s, he was in his 60s.

"When she moved out to go be with Rick, she told me I'd like him, that he was pro-choice and a humanist," said Allen, an elderly but vibrant man, during a brief conversation on the porch of his Pittsburgh row home. "But I don't think there's a humanist bone in that man's body."

Santorum has often said that at the time of their meeting neither he nor Karen were that devout in their faith. Upon falling in love, he says, they embarked on a soul-searching examination of their lives that brought them both closer to God.

A cousin of Santorum's with whom I'd corresponded over e-mail remembered Santorum becoming decidedly more serious after meeting Karen, whom he married in the summer of 1990.

Rick was a funny guy," wrote the cousin. "He sported a bushy moustache for a time, wore Hawaiian shirts and smoked cigars. He liked to laugh, drink and call things 'horsey-assey.' He was very popular and fun to be around. I think the change happened when he met Karen."

Santorum's views on abortion changed around this time as well, recalls the cousin.

"Our extended family has many strong women in it, who are intelligent and outspoken. There was one year Rick stopped by a family reunion for an hour or two. It was around the time he was 'rising to power' and becoming rabidly, ridiculously conservative. His views on abortion were quite contentious that year, and for those few hours of his visit, the women all descended upon him like flies, calling him on his change of views. He had always been pro-choice to my recollection. That's why it was such a heated issue that year. The women in my family felt betrayed."

As promised, here's the picture from the story of Rick "Rooster" Santorum (top left) as a baseball manager in high school. Time for a caption contest, fire away:

Posted by Brian in Santorum in the News at 13:00 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

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