A Pilgrim’s Digression

When I was at Cornell in July, I met a woman from Pittsburgh who informed me about a scandal involving Senator Rick Santorum that might prove the undoing of his political ambitions. I did not think much more about it until reading about it at FactCheck.org. It now seems to be coming to the attention of folks outside of Western Pennsylvania, finally.

While living in Virginia, outside of Washington, Santorum took advantage of a Pennsylvania Internet Charter School program to educate his children at the cost of about $73,000.00 to the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. As FactCheck.org describes it:

From 2001 to 2004, five of Santorum’s six children participated in classes at the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School , an online charter school that serves children from kindergarten through 12th grade. The school is open to the children of Pennsylvania residents. Under state law, the local school districts of the residents pay 80 per cent of their per pupil costs toward the school’s tuition. For the 2004-2005 academic year the tuition for Santorum’s five children would have been $38,000. The controversy centers on whether or not the Santorums are “residents” of the Penn Hills School District which paid for part of the tuition.

Santorum does own a home in Penn Hills, a wealthy suburb of Pittsburgh, but his family actually live in Leesburg, Virginia most of the time, and the Penn Hills school district has sued Santorum for a refund of the $73,000 the school district paid the Internet charter school for the education of Santorum’s children.

I call this a “scandal,” not so much because of the lawsuit, but because I don’t believe the public should be paying to educate a Senator’s children, if the Senator chooses an option for them other than public school. At the very least, it appears disgracefully opportunistic and greedy, especially when said Senator is rich enough to own a home in Penn Hills.

The debate over this issue is outlined at FactCheck.org because the Senator has finally responded to his critics with what can only be called a Nixonian “Checkers”-like political advertisement. For those who have never heard of Nixon’s beloved dog Checkers, the cute cocker spaniel figured in a major speech Nixon gave during the 1952 election.

Nixon had been charged with accepting illegal campaign contributions and gifts. Such gifts included the dog named Checkers, and Nixon swore that if his opponents wanted to make an issue of the gift of the dog, they could do so, but his kids loved the dog and he would never, never give the dog up.

The speech has become a textbook case of how to use fallacious rhetorical strategies to escape from a sticky political situation.

Santorum’s “Checkers,” it turns out, are his own kids. His campaign has been airing an advertisement that can be viewed at his website, titled “Important Job.” The straw man gets stuffed right in the beginning, and Santorum’s thirteen-year old son is the one packing in the straw.

Says little Johnny Santorum, “My dad’s opponents have criticized him for moving us to Washington so we could be with him more.” And then his younger brother, 11 year-old Daniel says, “they criticized us for attending a Pennsylvania public school over the Internet.”

Fact Check provides the details about how the ad misstates the arguments of Santorum’s opponents. For example, despite what the Senator has said, no one has criticized him for wanting his family to live with him in Virginia, and certainly no one has criticized him for educating his children via an Internet charter school. The issue is whether the Pennsylvania taxpayer should pay for that education when Santorum can damn well afford to pay for it himself. Or (God forbid) he could send his kids to the Leesburg, Virginia, public schools. From what I hear, Loudon County has some of the best public schools in the area.

What Fact Check balks at addressing, however, is the shameless way in which Santorum uses his own children as pawns in his political game. When I saw this ad at Fact Check, I could not believe that any Senator, let alone a Republican, would stoop so low as to shield himself from political fire with the bodies of his own children.

Senator Santorum should be ashamed of himself. But he probably isn’t. In November, Western Pennsylvania voters need to help the Senator decide whether he actually lives in Leesburg or Penn Hills. I know my wife’s relatives would prefer it if he took up permanent residence in Virginia.