February 23, 2012

Rick Santorum Deserves the Undeserved Abuse He’s Getting

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If it weren’t for the fact that I find him so creepy, I’d almost feel sorry for Rick Santorum over the abuse he’s taking for his explanation last night of his vote in favor of No Child Left Behind:

I have to admit, I voted for that. It was against the principles I believed in, but, you know, when you’re part of the team, sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader, and I made a mistake. You know, politics is a team sport, folks. And sometimes you’ve got to rally together and do something.

I guess this sort of counts as a Kinsley gaffe: a candidate accidentally telling the truth. But in a way it goes beyond that. Santorum wasn’t just telling the truth, he was repeating a banality. A little artlessly, sure, but basically still just a truism of politics. Of course members of Congress vote for things that are priorities for a president of their own party. That’s how politics works. If any one of the guys on the stage last night becomes president, they’ll be counting on that. Party solidarity is practically a religion in the GOP these days.

So that’s all bad enough. But then to hear Mitt Romney — Multiple Choice Mitt himself! — snark that “I don’t know if I have ever seen a politician explain, in so many ways, why he voted against his principles” just has to be galling as hell. Somehow Romney keeps wriggling away from the plain fact that Romneycare is nearly identical to Obamacare, something that really ought to be a death sentence, but following the lead of his president on a single issue a decade ago is all set to become Santorum’s undoing.

If it was anyone else, I really would feel sorry for him. But Santorum is so sanctimonious about being the only GOP candidate who’s an honest-to-God principled conservative that I can’t really work up anything but crocodile tears over this. He’s just getting his due.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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