Thomas F. Reilly, Attorney General of Massachusetts, has penned an op-ed in the Harrisburg Patriot-News calling on Rick Santorum to apologize for blaming the clergy abuse scandal on the city of Boston. As you know, we completely agree with the Attorney General. However, we won't hold our breath. Here's an excerpt:
But Sen. Santorum, perhaps motivated by national ambitions within the Republican Party or suffering from blind ignorance, decided to take a cheap political shot at another state. The fact that his remarks politically exploited child victims of abuse seems lost on him.
He has since tried to claim that "people are sort of taking that out of context because in 2002, that was the story; it was Boston. I mean, yes, we found out subsequently that it occurred in a lot of other places."
Wrong. In fact, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently corrected Santorum's weak attempt at damage control by pointing out that, at the time, the senator was laying blame on Boston, "the widespread nature of the problem was apparent and had been extensively reported."
What's even more appalling is that, even after Sen. Santorum's shameless attempts to excuse his remarks proved to be untrue, he has still refused to apologize. Not a single word of apology to the people of Boston or to the victims and their families throughout the country.
As a prosecutor and attorney general, I am accustomed to looking for patterns of behavior and I see a pattern in Rick Santorum of ill-considered statements unbecoming of a leader. They reveal insensitivity, mean-spiritedness, and even vindictiveness.
