Is the distant possibility of the Presidency or the offer of the position of candidate for Vice President on a 2012 GOP ticket more important to Santorum than the chance he forfeited to be a courageous guardian of truth and decency?
Pragmatic omission has trumped Santorum's lengthy claim to the "moral high ground." With this one glaring omission and his milquetoast attempt to justify his grievous omission and error at the moment the incident occured will haunt Rick to the last days of his life.
Angry curmudgeon and hate-ranter woman in the audience:
"I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not. He constantly says that our constitution is passé, and he ignores it as you know and does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim and my question is, why isn't something being done to get him out of government? He has no legal right to be calling himself president."To make things worse. Santorum, by not rebutting the lying woman, built on the power and momentum of her assertion and cleverly joined in on her verbal thrust. Added immediately by Rick Santorum:
"Well look, I'm doing my best to get him out of the government right now.... And you're right about how he uniformly ignores the constitution. He did this with these appointments over the recess that was not a recess, and if I was in the United States Senate I would be drawing the line."Were Santorum a genuine man of integrity and greater courage he would have reacted as did Sen. McCain during his 2008 campaign: Republican John McCain directly confronted an angry woman who at that time pejoratively described Mr. Obama as an "Arab" by saying:
"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man ... [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."The weak courage displayed by Santorum's meek excuse for his omission of an instant "moral challenge" is highly revealing: "I don't feel it's my obligation every time someone says something I don't agree with to contradict them, and the President's a big boy, he can defend himself and his record..." In other words I chose to protect those of my supporters who agree with this angry woman, and I certainly don't want to offend them or lose their votes.
In other words, Santorum will shield his supporter(s), however malicious or in error. This he did in order to protect his media sound bite for the evening's news hour. He'd leave the world believing he didn't know the answer to the woman's assertion. Or did he choose to simply refuse to defend the President under sharp attack, thus giving the distinct impression, he Santorum (smiling) relished this savage attack on the President's character? Coupled with Santorum's reference to the President as a "big boy" Rick's demeaner smacks of a deeper and far more troubling subliminal, instantaneous, instinctive approving rejoinder; revealing a very dangerous biased interpretation from deep within Santorum.
How simple would it have been for Santorum to say he's our President and an honorable Christian man; then defend Obama's honor with the whole truth?
But "(r)ather than disagreeing with the questioner or correcting her assertion by reminding her that President Obama is in fact a Christian, Santorum ignored the more controversial parts of her question." Observed Lee Bailey's EuroWeb site.
St. Santorum, the "values" endorsee of the Texas Religious Right 150 Coalition, has failed the moral courage test. Give Santorum a solid F- !
SEE Also: Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.
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