Rick Santorum Is A Hypocrite

In case you missed it, here's Lil Ricky a few days ago when asked about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. From the Wonkroom:

Unabashed social conservative former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) is quick to condemn homosexuality or abortion, but asked by ThinkProgress at Monday’s Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition presidential forum if Newt Gingrich had credibility to lead on “social” issues given his extramarital affairs and multiple marriages, Santorum refused to pass judgment on the former Speaker. “You have to talk to the Speaker about his issues,” he said, in an effort to dismiss the question

Then there's this gentle dodge from the National Review Online:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is seeking “forgiveness” from voters as he mulls a 2012 presidential bid. By talking openly about his past indiscretions, and making “no bones,” as he told Fox News this week, “that there were times I did the wrong thing,” Gingrich appears to be courting skeptical social conservatives.

Will Gingrich’s redemptive tack fly in Iowa? Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, another potential contender making frequent sojourns to the Hawkeye State, has a unique take. He tells National Review Online that it is fair to question someone’s behavior but emphasizes that past mistakes should not preclude a candidate from being able to make a case for the presidency. In other words, you will not find Santorum wagging his finger on the trail.

For the record, Newt Gingrich is on this third wife and he's been divorced twice. He married his first wife in 1962. (He was 19 and she was 26.) He left her following an affair with the woman who, after his first divorce, became his second wife. This was 1981. In the mid-90s (during the Clinton scandals) he was having an affair with the woman who, after his second divorce, became his third wife.

And now here's Rick talking about divorce with Michelangelo Signorile:

Well, I would say that first and foremost the thing that his broken down the family is divorce, has had the biggest impact on family disintegration in America and is a huge problem. And I think you’re right in suggesting that folks who are marriage advocates don’t go out and say look, we need… John McCain, to his credit, said that his greatest failure in his life was his divorce… [divorce] hurts families, it hurts children, it hurts moms, it huts dads. It’s a destructive and coercive element in our society with respect to families.

It must've hurt Newt's former wives, then.

And again from the wonkroom:

Santorum is far less generous to those with whom he disagrees, including President Bill Clinton. Asked whether he thought Clinton was morally fit to stay in office following his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Santorum — who voted to convict Clinton — told the Dallas Morning News in February of 1998, “I would say no, he’s not.”

“I think it’s a sign of decadence and decay. Which is a threat to the fabric of this country,” Santorum was quoted as saying in the Washington Post in January 1998.

So when a Democrat is unfaithful, he is not morally fit to hold office and the infidelity is a sign of decadence which threatens the fabric of society, but when a Republican is unfaithful he gets a qualified pass ("Does he think he did wrong? He did? Ok, then he can go.")

Rick Santorum, moral relativist. Hypocrite.