From the "Is This News?" Department

July 13th - Kennedy Rips Santorum for 2002 column

In the article, Senator Kennedy complains about a column Senator Santorum wrote 3 years ago blaming the Catholic sexual abuse scandal on a culture of liberalism.

I am probably the last to defend Santorum, and am likely to give a small donation to his opponent in the 2006 senate race. And the 2002 column was horrific - a supposed tough-on-crime conservative proposing to excuse criminals and looking at the "root causes" of bad behavior, a strategy employed by soft-on-crime liberals. Never mind that no one in our society condones the sexual abuse of preteen choir boys, regardless of their views on sex between consenting adults. What Santorum said should be condemned.

What I don't get - and this is where I think this isn't news and just silly partisan politics by Ted Kennedy - is why this column wasn't comdemned by the Democrats back in 2002 when it was first ran? The situation is kinda like Teddy was watching a criminal rob a number of banks and not come forward to say anything until the robber looks set to be held accountable for the crimes anyway.

Why can't the press just report the news, not just regurgatate every piece of bile both sides put out? And why can't politicians bash each other in a timely manner?

Grr...