Ethics Bob

Rick Santorum is no John McCain. I can’t imagine the right word for Santorum—spineless? craven? sleazy? When a woman at a McCain rally in 2008 started to go off on Obama, saying,

“I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s, uh . . ., he’s an Arab.”

 McCain shook his head and scolded her

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”

McCain’s rejoinder drew some boos and “C’mon, John” from the crowd, but McCain had done the ethical thing.

Today at a Santorum town hall in Florida one of his fans raised her hand in the Q&A period:

“I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not.”

Laughter and cheers from the crowd, and a smile from the candidate. The woman went on.

“He constantly says that our Constitution is passé and he totally ignores it. He does what he damn well pleases. He’s an avowed Muslim.”

Applause from the crowd, a continued smile from Santorum. She got to her question:

“Why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government? He has no legal right to be calling himself President.”

Did Santorum give her a lesson on citizenship and civility? You judge—here’s his answer:

“Well, yeah! I’m doing my best to try to get him out of there.”

I guess we shouldn’t expect honorable behavior from someone who has compared homosexuality to man-on-child or man-on-dog sex.

Tags: birther, ethics, John McCain, Obama Muslim, Santorum

This entry was posted on January 23, 2012 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Ethics-general, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.