Santorum repeats right-wing falsehoods about President Obama
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa -- Rick Santorum styles himself as a man who is big on personal responsibility -- and yet the former Pennsylvania senator apparently doesn’t feel any particular responsibility to the facts. Not, at least, when it comes to repeating ridiculous right-wing falsehoods about President Obama.
Speaking in Marshalltown on Friday, Santorum repeated the conservative canard that Obama had gone around the world apologizing for America. Here’s his quote: “When he went out around the world in his first trip and apologized for America, it was because he thinks that America needed to apologized for,” Santorum declared.
That charge is a favorite trope of conservative polemicists, but it simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Washington Post has examined the record in detail, comparing what Obama has said on his foreign trips with what other presidents have said. The Post’s conclusion: “The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts …. Republicans may certainly disagree with Obama’s handling of foreign policy or particular policies he has pursued, but they should not invent a storyline that does not appear to exist.” It rated the apology claim a whopper.
The Associated Press has also examined the “apologized for America” charge. The news organization concluded: “Obama has not apologized for America. What he has done, in travels early in his presidency and since, is to make clear his belief that the US is not beyond reproach… But there has been no formal – or informal – apology. No saying ‘sorry’ on behalf of America.”
Politifact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning truth-squad website, has also called the accusation false, saying that it was “incorrect … to portray these early speeches as part of a global apology tour,” and adding that, using the conservative standard, “you could argue that any change in foreign policy that’s undertaken after a presidential transition an announced to the world would constitute an ‘apology’ for the previous policy.”
So after the event, I noted to Santorum that fact-checkers had examined the charge exhaustively and labeled it untrue and asked why, that being the case, he was repeating it.
“Because he did,” Santorum replied, matter-of-factly.
Had he read the speeches and the looked at what the different fact-checkers had said?, I asked.
“I have,” he replied.
Well, if so, how did he justify continuing to make the erroneous charge?
“Because I believe it is true that he did,” Santorum said.
But why did he believe that was true?
“Thank you,” Santorum replied. “But if it’s a matter of opinion, I have an opinion that he did, thanks.”
So essentially what the former senator is saying is that the various detailed analyses of the conservative charge doesn’t matter to him. The false charge is convenient to make – and so he’ll go on making it. And that’s a telling commentary indeed about the man who has become the new hard-right favorite in the Republican field.
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