Rick Santorum
In a Sunday interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, Rick Santorum found himself in a very uncomfortable position. Chris Wallace asked the GOP Presidential candidate about his intent to reinstate the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that ended just last month.
“The problem is that sexual activity with people who you are in close quarters with who happen to be of the same sex is different than being open about your sexuality. They’re in close quarters, they live with people, they obviously shower with people,” Santorum said, saying the gay soldiers could have a negative “effect on retention and recruitment.”
After Wallace showed debate footage of Santorum insisting that the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was an unacceptable introduction of “social policy” into the military, he showed Santorum a quote from a former military official and asked whether he agreed with its basic idea: “The army is not a sociological laboratory. … Experiments … are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.”
An clearly uncomfortable Santorum said that he agreed. But it turns out that the quote was from Colonel E.R. Householder, a World War II-era official who made the comment in opposition to the racial integration of the military.
“It’s not the same thing,” Santorum responded in an attempt to distinguish between racial and sexual discrimination. “You are black by the color of your skin. You are not homosexual, necessarily, by the color of your skin.”
It’s pretty clear that Chris Wallace owned Rick Santorum during that interview. Those are the kinds of things Fox News needs to do more often.
