On Thursday we told you about a Senate committee hearing in which Rick Santorum said, "The only traveling I do is to and from my state and driving my kids all over the place." We explained that Rick had clearly forgotten a number of trips he went on over the last few years. But we didn't realize just how bad Rick's memory problems are.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has found 9 more trips that Rick has taken in the last two years, all of them on corporate jets that he only had to reimburse at the rate of first-class airline tickets. Here's how the Inquirer puts it:
It's a tempting offer for the time-strapped elected official: fly by private jet, courtesy of a corporation, without the hassle of long lines and lost luggage.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) took advantage of the perk 10 times in the last two years, paying more than $18,000 - a fraction of the true cost of the flights - to six companies with legislative interests before Congress, according to campaign-finance documents.
At least six of those flights came at a time when he advocated positions favorable to two of the companies: BellSouth Corp. and UST Public Affairs Inc., a Connecticut smokeless-tobacco company.
How is it that Rick could possibly have forgotten about all of those trips on private jets? Do you think he forgot about them when he voted on legislation that was important to the companies the jets belong to?
