Below is the entire Rick Santorum speech from which was mined the 19-second "phony theology" sound bite. If you want to know what the candidate really meant, start listening at about 3:00 in when he starts talking about the skyrocketing cost of gasoline and Obama's destructive energy policies. Clearly, the "phony ideal" he's referring to here is radical environmentalism, the fraudulent basis on which Obama justifies his liberty- and job-killing environmental agenda:
Bob Schieffer, all aghast below, tries to scold Santorum for "suggesting the president is not a Christian." For obvious reasons, it was a political mistake for Santorum to use the word "theology," regardless of the facts that for some, radical environmentalism is something of a religion, and that, well, Obama started it.
But Mr. Schieffer really needs to get out more. Watch as Santorum blows his walled-in liberal mind on search-and-destroy prenatal testing and the failure of the public school system:
I love what he's saying about education (8 minutes in). And the benighted Mr. Schieffer thinks only the wealthy homeschool? Ooookay.
Also interesting are Paul Ryan's thoughts on what Santorum meant, starting at 1:30 here. A partial transcript from The Hill:
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday blasted the Obama administration’s moves to mandate religious affiliated groups to provide contraception coverage as “paternalistic” and “arrogant.”Another point from Ryan:
“What we’re getting from the White House on this conscience issue, it’s not an issue about contraception, it’s an issue that reveals a political philosophy the president is showing that basically treats our constitutional rights as if they were revocable privileges from our government, not inalienable rights from our creator.” said Ryan on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“We’re seeing this new government activism, paternalistic, arrogant, political philosophy that puts new government-granted rights in the way of our constitutional rights.”
“That’s really not about contraception,” said Ryan of the mandate. “It’s about violating our first amendment rights to religious freedom and conscience.”
Ryan was asked by host David Gregory to respond to GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s comments Saturday, saying that President Obama’s political agenda was based on “some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.”
“I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” said Ryan. “I would simply say that he has a political philosophy that believes he can mandate certain benefits and activities of the American people that conflicts with their constitutional rights. He believes that these new government-granted rights trump our constitutional rights such as our first amendment right to conscience, to freedom of religion.”
“I would go after him on his political philosophy which violates our founding principles.”
If the president is willing to trample on our constitutional rights in a difficult election year, imagine what will he do in implementing the rest of this law after he doesn't have to face the voters again if he gets re-elected.Keep watching, if you can bear David Gregory and Chris Van Hollen, to hear Ryan's comments on Obama's criminally irresponsible budget.
Back to Santorum's speech; I didn't listen to the whole thing but the last 5 or 6 minutes or so, in which Santorum talks about our foundational freedoms being threatened by coercive big government, are worth watching.
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Update: Via The Right Scoop, Santorum's spokesman clarifies further.
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Follow-up post here.
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Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
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Ryan is refreshingly level headed. As is this post.
ReplyDeleteI love what Santorum has to say about public education--ie. that it has to be completely gutted and rebuilt. Talk about courage. The usual approach is that public education is a sacred cow: it just needs to be fed more, and needs a lot more bureaucrats to care for and watch over it. (But continuting the metaphor, we'll just try to ignore the huge amounts of crap it produces...)
ReplyDeleteActually, I love listening to Gregory and Van Hollen. They are, by force of habit, speaking to the voters of Maryland and a tight circle of Washington insiders. That is not where this election will be decided.
ReplyDeleteThe great divide in this country is not between the historical party establishments. It is between, as Codevilla put it, the ruling class and the country class. You know, flyover country. The anti-aircraft missiles are being deployed.