Santorum Blames Liberalism For Priest Rapes But Doesn't Blame GOP For Foley Scandal...
From the Boston Globe via HuffPost
Please allow me to offer Senator Rick Santorum a hearty Boston welcome to the world of the depraved. It wasn't all that long ago when Santorum, a conservative Republican from Pennsylvania, was blaming our entire city and seemingly every resident within it for the Catholic priest pedophile scandal that was unraveling all across the country.Those were dark days, here and elsewhere, though we were fortunate enough to have someone like Santorum shed a little bit of his moralistic light. Specifically, here's what he wrote:
"When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."
A Santorum spokesman was kind enough to provide even more clarity last year, telling me, `"It's an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases. I think that's what the senator was speaking to."
So do I. Priests rape young boys, the church hierarchy hushes it up for years, and academics and other assorted Democrats in Boston are to blame. That fact should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, which I think Santorum may have.
So, of course, I find it surprising -- no, make that shocking -- that the center of the storm has shifted from Boston to, of all places, Capitol Hill, and not just any part of Capitol Hill but specifically the offices of the Republican congressional leadership.
The scandal in Washington so mirrors what's happened in Boston and other Catholic dioceses the nation over to the point of being surreal. A rank-and-file member of an organization does wrong by a minor. The hierarchy, in turn, does nothing. Now, rather than a priest, it's a 52-year-old Republican congressman -- or make that a former congressman, given Mark Foley's resignation on Friday. Foley, by the way, has pulled the Patrick Kennedy defense, checking himself into rehab, as if everyone is supposed to applaud the courage of self-awareness.
Bill McCartney
