Things Rick Santorum Has 'Clarified' in the Past Two Weeks
Rick Santorum got pretty feisty on the campaign trail this weekend, and now "our less-than erudite members of the national press corps," as he put it, keep asking him if he really meant what he said. His answer? Sort of. Our guide to the major things the Republican presidential candidate has had to clarify in the past two weeks.
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Comparing Obama to Hitler. On Sunday, Santorum told a Georgia crowd that we delayed getting into World War II because we weren't sure Adolf Hitler was all that bad. "We're a hopeful people… We think, 'Well, you know it'll get better. Yeah, he's a nice guy. I mean, it won't be near as bad as what we think. This will be okay.' I mean, yeah, maybe he's not the best guy after a while, after a while you find out some things about this guy over in Europe who's not so good of a guy after all." CBS News reports Santorum then said Americans can't sit out the election just like they couldn't sit out the war. "So with the optimistic spirit of America, sometimes, sometimes it's not okay. It'll be harder for this generation to figure it out. There's no cataclysmic event." Doesn't that make Obama Hitler? "No, of course not," Santorum told CBS. Some find this credible, like @rotatingskull, who tweets, "Santorum merely compared the election to WWII. So perhaps in this analogy, Santorum is Hitler."
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Suggesting Obama is Muslim. In Ohio this weekend, Santorum said of Obama's environmental policy, "It's not about you… It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible -- a different theology." That didn't mean that Obama actually has a different theology, he said. "I've repeatedly said I believe the president is a Christian," Santorum told Face the Nation Sunday."He's says he's a Christian." His press secretary, Alice Stewart, told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell the same thing Monday. Santorum was referring to Obama's environmental policy she said. Unfortunately, while making that case, she accidentally said, "he was referring to the president's policies in terms of the radical Islamist policies the president has, specifically in terms of energy exploration." Woops! Stewart later called MSNBC to clarify she meant "radical environmental policies."
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Asserting women shouldn't be in combat because of all the emotions. "I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved,' Santorum said of women in combat earlier this month, adding it wouldn't be "in the best interest of men, women or the mission." The next day, the candidate clarified that he meant the men would be too emotional. "The other example is simply the emotions of men, dealing with women in combat, and having men not focusing potentially on the mission instead of the natural instinct to protect someone that’s a female."
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On birth control being bad for women. "My position is birth control can and should be available," Santorum said, after video of him saying birth control hurts women began circulating and his most generous donor jokes cheap and efficient birth control was "aspirin between a gal's knees." Santorum did not step away from his belief that birth control is bad. "I support Title X, I guess it is, and have voted for contraception and although I don't think it works, I think it's harmful to women, I think it's harmful to our society."
