Arlen Specter has come out on MSNBC today and said that he felt that Rick Santorum is too extreme to be President, and that Santorum is misrepresenting events from 2004. In this week’s GOP debate, Santorum said that he had endorsed Arlen Specter in order to get Specter to agree to Bush’s judicial nominees. Glenn, who interviewed Santorum for a full hour on GBTV last night, asked Santorum to respond to the attacks.
Politico reports:
“Where you have Senator Santorum’s views, so far to the right, with his attitude on women in the workplace and gays and the bestiality comments and birth control, I do not think it is realistic for Rick Santorum to represent America,” Specter said on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown.”…
Specter also said that Santorum had misrepresented him in Wednesday’s presidential debate. Santorum had claimed that he had endorsed Specter on the condition that Specter agree to the confirmation of President Bush’s judicial nominees.
“We never had a conversation about his support for me in 2004. It was just assumed. We had always supported each other. The issue about my backing the president’s nominees came up after I was elected and the question was on my chairmanship,” Specter said. “That is flatly not true.”
Video of the segment is below:
“All I would say is the proof is in the pudding,” Santorum said. “Arlen Specter stood up and defended Alito and Roberts every moment they were attacked. He was the first one out there defending them, doing exactly what he said he was going to do, which is work as chairman of the committee.”
“The fact is what I accounted to you is exactly what happened,” Santorum said of the meeting.
Santorum said that he’s pretty sure that Alito would not be on the court today without Specter’s support.
“Arlen Specter is a Democrat. Arlen Specter doesn’t want to see Rick Santorum elected. And I can just tell you that was a condition for me to step up there and support him at the end of the campaign,” Santorum said.
Santorum also took umbrage with Mitt Romney’s attacks from this weeks debate, wherein Romney went after Santorum for endorsing Specter.
“By the way, the person who attacked me on this was Mitt Romney who supported liberal activist judges on the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. Not one. Not two, but about thirty-six of them. And for him to attack me on who supported all these liberal candidates,” Santorum said. “Here’s a guy attacking me on standing up for my principles and making sure that we got Supreme Court Justices nominated.”
Santorum also accused Romney of being against Reagan conservatism, and for having the same policies on Obama when it comes to eliminating charitable deductions for the wealthy.
“Mitt Romney is in bed with Barack Obama on destroying these vital mediating institutions of our society by starving them of money from the very people that keep these organizations alive and well in our society,” Santorum said.
Glenn did ask Santorum why he has only given 4% of his income to charity when tithing requires 10%. Santorum did say that he does give speeches for severely discounted rates and has done other things that don’t show up on tax returns, but that he did need to do better.