Tuesday, September 12, 2006

A New Low

Rick Santorum Hides Behind His Kids In a Political Ad:

From FactCheck.org:

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum shows his children claiming that political opponents have criticized him 'for moving us to Washington,' and that 'they criticized us for attending a Pennsylvania public school over the Internet.' In fact, the critique was of Santorum, not his children. And the controversy was over money, not Santorum's family values.

The ad is Santorum's response to accusations by local officials that he exploited a Pennsylvania program that paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition for his children to be educated via a publicly supported Internet charter school while the family was living in Virginia.

n the ad 13-year-old Johnny Santorum says "My dad's opponents have criticized him for moving us to Washington so we could be with him more." And 11-year-old Daniel Santorum adds that "they criticized us for attending a Pennsylvania public school over the Internet."

That misstates matters. The criticism wasn't of Santorum's children, but of the senator himself. And it was not over moving the children to be near him, nor was it about choosing "public school" or "the Internet." Rather, it concerned whether Pennsylvania taxpayers should foot a very substantial bill for the Santorum brood's education-via-Internet from a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC

(More at the link)

Lying in a campaign ad is expected. Trotting your kids out to do it for you in a cheap sympathy ploy is a half-mile below despicable.


4 comments:

Brett Battles said...

Crap like this makes me...well, sick. Using his kids in this way is just not right.

Richard Cooper said...

Usually the most despicable politician wins. It's a law or something. Unless voters are wary, they get what they deserve.

Julia said...

It seems like this guy is always finding a "new low".

Elizabeth Krecker said...

The saddest truth of all: Politicians do this kind of stuff because it works.