For some reason, I suspected that - aside from branding him an outright lunatic - Sen. Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum's bizarre views (especially as related to
church sex abuse) would come back to haunt him. They have. Sunday, as he
further embarrassed himself and Pennsylvania appearing on "This Week," he continued to blame Boston for the larger crisis:
SANTORUM: I singled out Boston in 2002. In July of 2002, that was the epicenter. We did not know ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: That is simply not true. I went back and looked at all of these clips. We had stories in 1994, going back all the way to 1984 in Louisiana, in just about every archdiocese in the country. I just don't understand why you stick by this, because we now know it was widespread. It was in every city in the country.
SANTORUM: Well, at the time, we did not know it was in every city of the country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We knew a lot of that.
SANTORUM: It was - look at the press reports. It was the epicenter.
Well, one epicenter Santorum missed was in his own backyard. Specifically, his
own church! Thanks to
The Democratic Daily for this juicy tidbit:
Rick Santorum claimed yesterday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that in July 2002, when he wrote the article that has recently resurfaced, calling Boston the "liberal" seat of church abuse, he did not know that there were similar cases in PA. In my earlier post on this today, I noted that George Stephanopoulos called him on that statement.
Since my earlier post on this, I have received numerous newspaper articles from an anonymous source, dating back to March 2002 that all make reference to church abuse cases in PA. The most interesting article was from July 12, 2002 - Capitol Hill Pastor Faces Child Sex Case.
The pastor of a historic Capitol Hill parish that serves many Roman Catholic members of Congress was placed on leave yesterday after a Washington area man accused him of sexual abuse in the early 1970s, the second such allegation against the priest.
The last paragraph of the article notes that among the church's parishioners included "Sens. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.)."
It's absolutely despicable that Rick Santorum is playing politics with with the victims of these cases. If this is some sort of marketing ploy to sell his new book to conservatives it's a sick joke aimed towards those who have suffered. No man with any sense of moral dignity, would continue pushing this issue as Santorum has.
Three cheers for more Republican hypocrisy! And, as always, when in doubt, blame a blue state.