Last week, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Budoff, Rick Santorum claimed that he has publicly expressed concerns about President Bush's policies with regard to the war in Iraq.
That was not the first time Santorum made this claim. On August 10, 2005, Rick told NPR's Diane Rehm, "I have concerns, as everybody does - and I'm sure the President does - about how effective every aspect of this policy has been. And I've been critical of certain aspects of that policy." Here's the audio.
So, what's the problem? Well, as Carrie Budoff reports in today's Inquirer, Rick's office can't find any record of those public criticisms or concerns that Rick claims to have made. Seems like those statements weren't as public as Rick thought. Then again, perhaps Rick was thinking of the following public criticism that he leveled at military action undertaken by the President:
“[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
We can see how this might have confused him. However, he said that in March of 1999. It was a criticism of President Clinton's policy toward Bosnia.
Clearly, Rick can be critical of a President's military policies. We just have no evidence that he has been at all critical of President Bush.
What does Rick have to say about the missing public criticisms?
"I do a lot of interviews on TV, on radio, with print reporters who don't happen to write everything I say," Santorum said yesterday. "The fact that it hasn't turned up in print doesn't mean I haven't said it."
Yes, because when a loyal member of President Bush's own party makes a statement to a reporter that is critical of the President's Iraqi War policy, any reporter with even a little bit of sense would know that isn't newsworthy and make sure to leave it out of their story. Look how little media attention Senator Hagel has gotten recently.
C'mon Rick.
I'm with Brian on this one, big time. If you, Ricky Santorum, manager of the K Street Project and boss of the Republican Conference, had said anything that came even close to criticism of what W is doing in Iraq to a print reporter, not only would they have been writing it down, they would have immediately called their editor to lobby for space on page 1. and then, after their story was published? You, Rick Santorum, would have been followed around by so many pencils and cameras that people might, however fleetingly, think there's a movie star in town.
Think about it, Ricky. Kinda too good to be true, right?
1. Congress needs to focus on making health insurance available to everyone.
2. I will do everything I can to keep Pennsylvanians from losing their jobs.
3. Despite my homophobia, I can't look away from Jude Law.
4. Yeah, DeLay is crooked.
Careful Ricky, don't step out of line!
If you cant afford to pay for your 6 kids education on a senator's piddly-shit salary, maybe you should have considered that before you had so many of them. Why dont you send your wife out to work like so many families have had to do?
Its pretty funny watching you turn on your puppetmaster. You know you have never critisized bush and co on the illegal Iraq war. If you had, it would have been highly publicized. You have been caught in a lie and voters are pretty disgusted with you liars right now. You must be pretty desperate to retain your seat in the senate but you will lose and then you will have to get a real job. Welcome to the real world, loser.
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