Santorum Exposed: The Blog - Entries from March 2006

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Wednesday, March 22. 2006

Three Card Ricky

In an editorial titled "Lobbyist Reform as a Shell Game," the New York Times skewers Rick Santorum and his role in the current effort to reform Congressional ethics rules. Here's an excerpt:

Enter Capitol reality: As Congress drifts through a lobbying debate that leans toward cosmetic evasions, Mr. Santorum has been as avid as ever in wooing power lobbyists. The Washington Post reported that the senator had maintained his elite meetings with special-interest brokers.

The senator exemplifies the ultimate scandal in the reform debate: that the subversive money nexus between lawmakers' campaigns and opportunistic lobbyists is not even on the agenda. An honest run at the problem would stop lobbyists from bundling together maximum campaign donations from their clients. Many lawmakers have dropped any arm's length pretense and enlisted big-time lobbyists as formal treasurers for their political kitties.

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 14:03 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Wednesday, March 15. 2006

Santorum's Trust Problem

Rick Santorum was on CN8's Larry Kane:Voice of Reason this week and Larry asked Rick about the $500,000 mortgage he received in 2002 from the Philadelphia Trust Company. Rick's answer shows that he completely misses the point about the mortgage controversy and what constitutes preferential treatment. The video, transcript and our analysis are below:

WINDOWS | QUICKTIME

Transcript:

Santorum: "Look, everyone who's looked at that mortgage will recognize that's a, that's very much a mortgage that's available on the market. I got no preferential treatment. In fact, one of the things I do, whether I'm buying, you know, a car or whether I'm buying a tube of toothpaste. I make it very, very clear -- I don't want my name in the newspaper as a result of this transaction and you don't want your name in the newspaper -- treat me just like any other consumer. And that's the way you got to live in this business.

Obviously, it's important to have that public trust. And I hold that as the most important thing that I have in this job is I've been given a trust and I want to make sure that I earn that trust everyday. So, no I got no preferential treatment. This mortgage is a mortgage that is typical of any of the mortgages that were being offered at that time. And I think that everyone who's commented on it has pretty much said the same." (emphasis ours)

Rick seems to think that, because his mortgage was at an interest rate similar to other rates being offered at the time, he didn't receive preferential treatment. However, that has nothing to do with the real issue.

Rick received a mortgage from the Philadelphia Trust Co. whose web site says that its banking services "are available only to investment advisory clients whose portfolios we manage, oversee or administer." When Rick received his mortgage he was not an "investment advisory client" of Philadelphia Trust. As Will Bunch originally reported, "[a] call to the bank confirmed that mortgages are only for investors and not the general public."

So Rick got a mortgage from a company that only lends to its own investors even though he was not an investor. He didn't meet their most basic lending criteria, yet he still was given a $500,000 mortgage. Here's an experiment for you. Call Philadelphia Trust and ask them to give you a mortgage even though you're not one of their investors. What do you think they'll tell you?

If Rick received something that you and I can't get, even though he wasn't any more qualified to get it, THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF PREFERENTIAL TREAMENT.

The mortgage may have been typical of mortgages that were being offered at the time. The problem is, Rick's mortgage wasn't being offered on the open market by Philadelphia Trust. Speaking of trust, Rick says he works hard to earn yours everyday. Do you trust him when he says he got no preferential treatment?

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 08:11 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Tuesday, March 14. 2006

Disingenous Innuendo, eh?

Rick Santorum has written a letter to the Philadelphia Daily News claiming that their reporter, Will Bunch, has attacked him for founding a charity. As Bunch points out in response to Rick's letter, more than a few other news organizations have found problems related to Operation Good Neighbor. From Rick's letter:

THE FACT that Will Bunch, who seems to have embraced the use of disingenuous innuendo and half-truths in his "news" stories, is intent on attacking me for founding a charity is more than a little bemusing

This is an organization whose sole purpose is helping our neighbors in greatest need. I don't have anything to do with its day-to-day operations, but I'm proud to have my name affiliated with Operation Good Neighbor.

Rick's contention that he has nothing to do with the charity's day-to-day operations is completely disingenous considering that he shows up to hand out giant novelty checks and the charity puts the pictures up on its web site. If you're going to take the credit for the charity handing out cash to worthy causes, then you need to take responsibility for the problems as well. You can't have it both ways, Rick.

Whatever happened to Rick's strong belief in personal responsibility? Does that only apply to others? Anybody else smell that hypocrisy?

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 11:39 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Thursday, March 9. 2006

Santorum Just Can't Stop

This is just incredible. From the Washington Post:

After saying in January that he would end his regular meetings with lobbyists, Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), the third-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, has continued to meet with many of the same lobbyists at the same time and on the same day of the week.

Santorum, whose ties to Washington lobbyists have been criticized by his Democratic challenger, suspended his biweekly encounters on Jan. 30. His decision came as Democrats named him as their top target in November's Senate races, and after the guilty plea of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff to charges of conspiring to corrupt public officials.

But in the month since his announcement, Santorum has held two meetings attended by the same core group of lobbyists, and has used the sessions to appeal for campaign aid, according to participants. Both of those meetings were convened at the same time as the previous meetings -- 8:30 a.m. -- on the same day of the week -- Tuesday -- and they lasted for about as long as the earlier meetings -- one hour.

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 09:36 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Wednesday, March 8. 2006

Lobbyist? What's a Lobbyist?

WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh recently confronted Rick Santorum about his charity and the fact that lobbyists play prominent roles in it. During the interview Rick tells us that there is a difference between being a "principal in a lobbying firm" and being a "principal in a public affairs firm, a government relations firm", which also happens to list lobbying as one of its services. It's reassuring to know that the self-proclaimed Republican point man on ethics reform doesn't know what a lobbyist is:

But Santorum's charity has also put money -- $216,000 -- into unexplained travel and meetings through 2004.

That's almost half of the $501,000 donated to community organizations, mostly in Philadelphia.

Who's doing all that traveling and where are they going? Team 4 asked the charity and the Senator, but they've refused to release the records.

"One thing I'm very clear about is to try to keep a separation between anything I do officially and the charity. I don't want the charity involved in politics," Santorum said.

But politics is involved in the charity. Santorum put political lobbyists and campaign staffers in charge of Operation Good Neighbor.

Charles Black is a member of the board of advisers for Operation Good Neighbor, and a federally registered lobbyist with the Washington firm BKSH.

One of his clients is ALCOA, a company that last year received a $1.9 million federal defense contract that Santorum and fellow Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) trumpeted in a news release.

Barbara Bonfiglio is treasurer of Operation Good Neighbor. She's also treasurer of Santorum's re-election campaign and his political action committee, America's Foundation. Bonfiglio is a principal in Williams and Jensen, a top Washington lobbying firm.

And Operation Good Neighbor's executive director is Rob Bickhart, who gets paid a salary by the charity and rent because Operation Good Neighbor is located in the suburban Phialdephia offices of Bickhart's company, Capitol Resource Group.

Santorum's re-election campaign and his PAC are also located there and they pay rent, too. And they pay management fees to Capitol resource.

Parsons: "Why are you paying a lobbyist, Rob Bickhart, to run that charity of yours?"

Santorum: "Well, first of all, he's not a lobbyist, No. one."

Parsons: "Well, he's a principal in a lobbying firm."

Santorum: "No, he's a principal in a public affairs firm, a government relations firm. And he does a whole bunch of other things."

But Capitol Resource Group's Web site clearly lists lobbying as a service it provides to clients.

And just last month, when Sen. Arlen Specter was facing questions about his ties to lobbyists, published reports in the Post-Gazette and New York Times said Bickhart and his Capitol Resources Group lobbied Specter.

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 17:51 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Monday, March 6. 2006

Santorum Sets the Record Straight?

Rick Santorum has penned a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette taking issue with a few things they recently reported about him.

Rick informs the Post-Gazette that, contrary to their report last week, he is still the Republican point man on ethics reform even though he apparently won't be attaching his name to the legislation.

He also takes issue with the Post-Gazette characterizing the charity that Rick founded, Operation Good Neighbor, as his personal charity. He claims that he merely founded the charity, serves as the honorary chairman of its board and helps to raise money for it. But, he says, he has no control over it's direction.

However, Rick neglects to mention in his letter that he likes to hand out big novelty checks to recipients and have his picture plastered all over the Operation Good Neighbor Web site.

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 13:30 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

Thursday, March 2. 2006

Santorum and Intelligent Design's Daddy

Rick Santorum has written the foreword for the upcoming book, "Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson And the Intelligent Design Movement." For those of you who aren't familiar with Johnson, Wikipedia describes him as "the father of the intelligent design movement." Here's how Publishers Weekly describes the book:

This Festschrift from friends—and a couple of friendly critics—honors Phillip Johnson, the Berkeley law professor whose 1991 publication Darwin on Trial and later books helped intelligent design emerge as a highly visible, and highly controversial, alternative to Darwinism. While it may be premature to hail Johnson as "Darwin's Nemesis," these essays reveal him as an influential strategist and mentor within the ID movement.

Do you think Rick's foreword will mention his recent opposition to teaching intelligent design in classrooms?

Posted by Brian in Santorum's Hypocrisy at 12:41 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)

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