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BREAKING: IN 1990, according to a line in the Pittsburgh Press, Rick Santorum wasn’t the full-throated anti-abortion guy he now disingenuously claims to be

Ha! NOW we’ve kinda caught his preachy, sanctimonious ass in a kinda baldfaced, hypocritical, very un-Christian LIE! Which means that it’s okay, finally, to support Romney as a conservative and not look at ourselves as big fat fucking sellouts!

Rejoice!

Here’s the skinny, paraphrased from the scanned newpaper page that’s been helpfully highlighted: Santorum said, in 1990 (and according to this Pittsburgh paper), that he has always opposed government funding of abortions. But get this: his only official position prior to his campaign, taken from a position paper he later “quietly withdrew”, spoke to issues of fetus viability when determining support for federal law. Santorum claims in the article that he eventually settled into a position against most forms of abortion — after a lot of “soul searching” and “education.”

Meaning, Santorum at one point early in his political career wasn’t absolutely certain how to navigate his own personal beliefs about abortion with his official government position and with the right of a woman to choose — finally settling on an official stance against most forms of abortion at the expense of the law of the land, which legalized a woman’s right to choose.

Not very Christian, that wavering. But perfectly understandable from a political standpoint.

Thanks to Ace for pointing out what a fucking hypocrite the 32-year-old, newly-married Santorum was in moving from a “no government funding of abortions, and no abortions once the fetus is viable” stance (which, incidentally, is a marker that has shifted since 1990, and continues to shift in favor of fewer and fewer abortions!) before his campaign began and before he was ever elected, to his stance of a few months later, after his campaign began, when he came out against most forms of abortion, having engaged in some very convenient “soul searching” and “education,” and then won his election.

Why, it’s like Santorum and Romney are barely distinguishable on the issue — flip floppers the both of them! Meaning we may as well go for the guy with the better hair, then. Right?

Or as Ace puts it,

“Running in Blue parts of the country tends to do that to you.

That was 1990, by the way. So his conversion occurred four years before Mittens’.

True!

(Of course, left out in this formulation is that Santorum’s “conversion” happened in a blue state during his campaign (and he ended up winning anyway!), that he was always against any government funding of abortion, and that he’s held the opposition to abortion view ever since that early conversion; and that Santorum’s “conversion” happened at 31 and newly married, whereas, even were we to believe Romney’s “conversion” happened only 4 years later, Romney would have been at age 47 when he saw the light. And that he may have had a few relapses.

(Not that it matters to me, frankly. As a matter of fact, I’m where Santorum started out — against abortion personally but reluctantly pro choice politically, and cognizant of the difficulty of the “rights” side of the debate. Nevertheless, it seems it’s important to some that we know Santorum may be a dirty filthy liar and a pious hypocrite in order that we might better stomach Mitt Romney’s rank opportunism and justify our public support for him despite his demonstrably liberal tendencies.

And hey. Whatever helps you get by.)

(h/t newrouter)

34 Replies to “BREAKING: IN 1990, according to a line in the Pittsburgh Press, Rick Santorum wasn’t the full-throated anti-abortion guy he now disingenuously claims to be”

  1. sdferr says:

    yes, it’s called tribalism

    ace at February 14, 2012 01:50 PM

  2. mojo says:

    “Bold-faced”? Geeze, not you too!

    The phrase is “bald-faced liar”, as in missing a beard to hide behind.. Ellison I can understand, he’s a moron from Detroit. You’re an English major.

    TWO DEMERITS!

  3. Jeff G. says:

    That was an editing error, mojo. I initially had “bold” describing something and didn’t proofread. I’ve used baldfaced in other posts. Correctly. Maybe even today! No, really! Go look!

  4. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Now, is this another one of those “wedge” type issues where I’m supposed to live down to somebody else’s troglodytic mongoloid PURIST! incapabable of appreciating NUANCE stereotype and immediately renounce my support for the HYPOCRITE faux-lifer or something?

  5. B. Moe says:

    The cool thing is, this kind of exposure of Santorum as a thinking, non-knee jerk-dogmatic is only going to help him with the voters Ace is sure won’t vote for him.

    I am trying to think of some way to create a word that is a smash up or “ironic” and “karma” but I can’t really come up with one. Probably isn’t really appropriate anyway.

  6. geoffb says:

    I don’t think in the age of the internet it would be a good idea for supporters of any politician in either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party to figure on winning a campaign by digging up news stories from 15-20-25 years ago. Now that, not just those who can afford Lexis-Nexis can get in the game in mass, a Pyrrhic victory, at best, is almost guaranteed.

    Or to put it another way. “Well punk, ya feeling lucky today?”

  7. sdferr says:

    a smash up or “ironic” and “karma”

    Kantian might fit.

  8. mojo says:

    Ok, fine. Take an attaboy out of petty cash.
    ;)

  9. mojo says:

    PS: Abortion

    Personal choice, and not for me. You want to kill off your offspring and give mine a better shot at life, who am I to argue? Not really a survival characteristic, at least on the species level, I look at it as “evolution in action”.

    As for “god’s rules”, he/she/it is capable of enforcement without my help.

  10. leigh says:

    Isn’t that article out of the Post-Gazette? They were totally in the tank for Clinton and spent huge amounts of column space bashing Newt during the impeachment and before.

  11. leigh says:

    Mojo, neoneocon has a very moving column about abortion on her front page from a few days ago. She is some years older than me, and tells the story of one of her college roommates who had an illegal abortion. The article she writes and the responses are very good.

  12. JohnInFirestone says:

    @B.Moe, “Karmonic” (You get karma and ironic, with harmonic thrown in for good measure).

  13. Squid says:

    I think that if I’m to be forced to pay for some chick’s abortion, I at least should get to pick which ones. Set up a “hot or not?”-style web site and grant voting frequency based on taxes paid.

    Sure, they’ll say it’s demeaning, but so is putting up pictures of guys caught soliciting prostitution, and we already do that.

  14. newrouter says:

    On May 17, 1992, a strike by workers for the Press shut down publication of the Press; the joint operating agreement meant that the Post-Gazette also ceased to publish. During the strike, the Scripps Howard company sold the Press to the Block family, owners of the Post-Gazette.

    link

  15. leigh says:

    Thanks, nr. I was living in Reading then and wasn’t sure.

  16. leigh says:

    Excellent. Thanks, sdferr.

  17. McGehee says:

    Bold-faced vs. bald-faced liars is a wedge issue I think. Some hairy faces are mighty bold when they’re saying stuff what isn’t true.

    Then again the original Baghdad Bob didn’t even have a mustache for to dust the frosting off his cupcakes.

  18. EBL says:

    I am a bit worried with Rick Santorum taking on libertarians and the tea party (as he has done lately). And I am not a Mitt or Newt guy. I want Santorum to do well. But I sure as hell want to believe he has some priorities on what this fight is about. I want a cheerful conservative warrior like Ronald Reagan, not a more conservative version of Mayor Bloomberg.

  19. newrouter says:

    oh do you remember who made earmarks his hobby horse?

    McCain has been called one of the Senate’s most outspoken critics of pork barrel spending.[28] On April 16, 2007, McCain gave a speech on the U.S. economy to the Economic Club of Memphis. He criticized wasteful spending and reiterated his promise to make any sponsors of pork or earmarks “famous” when he becomes president.[29]

    In March 2008, Gannett News Service reported that McCain’s home state of Arizona ranked last in federal earmarks, because three of the state’s ten lawmakers in Washington – McCain and House Republicans Jeff Flake and John Shadegg – refuse to ask for any federal money for local projects.[30] In March 2008, he was one of twenty-nine U.S. Senators, including Obama and Clinton, to vote in favor of a one-year moratorium on earmarks.[31]

    McCain says he hopes to stop special interests from lobbying for special projects. His 2008 campaign website includes the statement that “The federal government spends too much money, squanders precious resources on questionable projects pushed by special interests, and ignores the priorities of the American taxpayer.”[32] Earmarks total about $18 billion a year, according to independent estimates.[33] However, on August 2, 2007, he voted against a bi-partisan bill to provide greater transparency in the legislative process and to regulate lobbyists.

    link

  20. EBL says:

    Yeah, McCain made earmarks a big issue. And McCain’s daughter’s head would explode if Santorum won (a good reason to vote for him).

    And Santorum is right, earmarks are a tiny segment of the budget and eliminating them would do nothing appreciable to deficits (in themselves). We need entitlement reform. What we need the Paul Ryan budget. I think Santorum is for that. I liked when Santorum said entitlement reductions are needed. As far as earmarks, he should say we should get rid of that now too. I do not care Santorum took earmarks while a Senator for Pennsylvania. He is not running for Senator now, but Preisdent. And we have a massive budget crisis that needs to be fixed. His first steps should be getting rid of Obamacare and adopting the Ryan budget. If Santorum can lead the way on those two things, he will be a hero.

  21. newrouter says:

    when is see the santorum-earmarks line of attack i think back to johny mac and his endorsement of mittens

  22. newrouter says:

    you can just hear grampa john telling mittens ” eh eh hit him with earmarks mitt”

  23. EBL says:

    That reminds me of back in 2008 when McCain invited Mitt and some Republican leaders over to his Arizona house after the nomination. McCain got everyone cocktails and then he said, don’t worry Mitt I got a drink for you and Ann. And he brought them mochas.

    And who leaked this BTW? http://hillbuzz.org/great-merciful-zeus-john-mccains-200-page-oppo-book-on-mitt-romney-released-33887

  24. Jeff G. says:

    Yes, EBL, I went to Klein’s article and saw you’d left about ten comments talking about how you so dearly wished Santorum weren’t saw unelectable.

  25. SaraG says:

    The problem is that anyone who thinks a devout Mormon, someone who was fulfilling the roles of Bishop of his Boston Ward and then Stake President, was ever anything but pro-life is loony tunes. Romney had no conversion, he was always pro-life. What he said in ’94 was that he would not break the law of the land, if elected, despite his personal views.

  26. jdw says:

    This American Thinker piece strikes me as having already given in to a reality of the additional hurtful 4 more years of Obama. Titled “Obama the Great”; or, as I’d like to see it, “A ‘Good Man’, My ASS!”.

    People like the president as a person, saying he’s a great guy, a good husband, and a fine father. Good person or not, he has been disastrous as a president. And he is the worst kind of disaster: a disaster who thinks himself a huge success — fourth-best president ever — and that was him just being modest. …

    When he departs the presidency, whether it is on 1/20/13 or after four more years of our misery, he will surely sashay into the history books, great or not. In his next job as emperor of the U.N., he can air out his post-American anti-Americanism to his natural audience — other anti-Americans — while maintaining the myth of his autodidactic polymathism.

    The world knows that Obama worships at the altar of Obama, but what I don’t understand is why so many Americans and the press buy into his self-delusional perception of magnificence. From his first day in office, he has made one bad decision after another, ham-handedly making the nation’s situation worse at every turn.

    As we ‘splained to them already. But, CHANGE~!

  27. […] trumpeting deeply weak accusations of Flip-Floppery against Rick Santorum (for just how weak, see Protein Wisdom). True to form, the comment threads are hitting 1,000 plus as a matter of course, and the salty […]

  28. Slartibartfast says:

    No one who’s paid attention to the history of American presidential elections could use the word “unelectable” without chuckling behind their hand, madly.

    EBL is doing rather a lot of linkwhoring. Not my blog, but…that’s just kind of rude, I think.

  29. leigh says:

    I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought it was overstepping a bit. Actually, a lot.

  30. Squid says:

    And Santorum is right, earmarks are a tiny segment of the budget and eliminating them would do nothing appreciable to deficits (in themselves).

    *sigh* All right, students, let’s revisit the lesson one more time:

    Rep Smith promises to support a $150 million boondoggle if Rep Jones will support $1 million in pork for Smith’s district. Jones promises to go along with a $200 million boondoggle if Smith supports $2 million in pork for Jones’ district.

    True or false: the budget impact of the earmarks is $3 million.

  31. Jeff G. says:

    It’s not that earmarks are a tiny segment. Inhofe’s argument is that earmarks allow the states themselves to compete for funding rather than allow the Party in power to control all the spending and pork through omnibus bills.

    I think.

    I’m just kinda guessing, actually. Who can read about this stuff without falling into a stupor?

  32. Jeff G. says:

    By the way. Can someone send me a copy of The Morning Jolt? For some reason I’ve never been able to get it.

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