Posted on 03/02/2009 11:35:13 AM PST by Born Conservative
Washington — Former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum’s acquisition of political-outsider status since his 2006 loss to Democrat Bob Casey is affording him a lot of bluntness.
“We were unethical,” he said of congressional Republicans involved in the scandals involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the securing of earmarks for special projects in their districts. “Let’s just be frank about it.”
Speaking at the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Omni Shoreham Hotel Saturday, the copious applause he received bespoke the self-criticism abounding in today’s conservative movement. The GOP’s performance on ethics, before the Democrats won Congress and the White House, he said, is especially troubling to him, an erstwhile member of the U.S. House of Representatives’ “Gang of Seven” in 1991, who were involved in fighting the banking scandals.
His extended his criticisms of his party’s record over the past eight years to George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the earlier phases of the war in Iraq, before 2007’s surge in troop levels.
“We were incompetent,” he said. “We were simply incompetent.”
And while Republicans complain about the most severe spending increases in the nation’s history ushered in by President Barack Obama, Mr. Santorum said Mr. Bush and other Republicans who supported the financial bailout last fall bear much of the blame.
“It opened up a door that the next president is driving a bulldozer through,” he said.
Much of Mr. Obama’s $787 million spending measure contains elements of what Mr. Santorum called an emerging American version of “European socialism.”
If all of the president’s projects on national health care, forced unionism and the environment come to fruition, Mr. Santorum said, the destruction of the Democrats’ reputation that may come afterward could amount to a Pyrrhic victory for the GOP.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebulletin.us ...
He could learn from some FRreepers, who are total scumbags but never say sorry as well.
He IS right. Many Republicans in Congress were unethical, but I don't see where he blamed it on conservative Congressmen.
He threw Pat Toomey under the bus
He threw pro-lifers under the bus
He threw gunowners under the bus
He joined the spendaholics
Would not support the Fairtax
Moved to Virginia after criticizing his opponent for doing it.
He threw Republican Pittsburgh Mayoral Candidate Joe Weinroth under the bus
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