Rick Santorum Goes Too Far. Again.

Oh, I am hoping for Robert Casey, Jr. to come along and knock my junior senator off the hill. Every time Santorum opens his mouth, something stupid and vile leaps out. This time, he's talking about levying "penalties" for Katrina's victims. Watch him say it, then squirm, here.

Comments

Listen to what he is saying, lets look at it, every one was told it was a mandatory evacuation, and that if they were to stay it would mean that they would die. What part of 'Get out or you will die' did people not understand? And now some people have died trying to save them. They had busses all around the city to get people out of their homes and to a place they thought would be safe, he is not talking about all victims but just the victims that stayed in their homes against the orders to evacuate, people like Fat's Domino et al. He is not talking about the victims that were at the supper dome. He is saying if the government tells you to get out because a major disaster is coming, get the heck out or if you don't be prepaid for the consciences of not obeying the government, hum seams fair to me.

[Daniel]

"They had busses all around the city to get people out of their homes..." And under water.

Watch the "clarification." Obviously, even he thought that he went too far.

The busses before Katrina were not under water, the flooding only happend after Katrina, the busses were there for the people after the order was given, and befor Katrina. and the video keeps stalling on me, maybe you could give a transcript for me (or others that might have the same problem) but I will say when a polotition "retracts" a statement it is only because of public presure, and I don't really take it to heart. Call me cynical if you want.

[Daniel]

I misunderstood your bus comment, sorry. But they were not utilized (which is all on Nagin, as far as I'm concerned). I think that Santorum realized that he is in a fight for his political life and he knew that he once again sounded like and idiot, so he sought to fix it. You're not cynical, you're correct.

So let's say that he didn't mean his "retraction." What did he mean? That anybody who is about to lose everything they have should be further damaged because by government fines?

This is what he said:

"You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

Then on Tuesday:

"Obviously most of the people here in this case, an overwhelming majority of people just literally couldn't have gotten out on their own. Many didn't have cars ... and that really was a failure on the part of local officials in not making transportation available to get people out."

The first and second statements really are two different ideas. You really can't parse the first into the second.

Also, the warnings he talked about where so late and so contradictory (It's mandatory. But it isn't, really) probably caused many to question whether the threat was what the Mayor said it was.

Taken by itself, this is merely crass and politically stupid. With all his other statements, it's just more of the same.

Sorry, I can't find a free site for the video. I'll keep looking.