This week’s WTF Wednesday is brought to you by Rick Santorum (although Newt Gingrich’s internal memo was a close second).
Santorum, after big wins in Mississippi and Alabama, celebrated his victory by offending the entire island of Puerto Rico.
While campaigning in San Juan on Wednesday, Santorum threw any chance he had at winning the Puerto Rican primary down the toilet by basically telling Puerto Rican newspaper El Vocero that Puerto Ricans need to learn English if they want to become a state.
“As in any other state, must comply with this and any federal law. And that is that English has to be the primary language,” he said when asked about Puerto Rico becoming a state.
Except that there’s no actual law requiring English to be the official language. The Constitution doesn’t require it and there is no law on the books requiring a territory to adopt English as the official language. The United States hasn’t adopted English as the official language, which has been brought up in the Republican debates. Santorum was there! He heard it!
Now, I understand there were a lot of debates. And some of the debates were REALLY boring. I don’t remember half of what was said. But Santorum went to law school. He passed the bar. He should know the law. Last time I checked, the Pennsylvania Bar still tests Constitutional Law.
The point is, Santorum should have known better. He really needs to think before he speaks.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. We all remember his off color comment about sending the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to Guam and Santorum financier Foster Freiss’ ‘joke’ about women using aspirin as birth control. Santorum claims both were jokes, but no one thought they were funny.
I don’t know if Santorum is playing a game where he says the most outrageous statement possible to see if people will vote for him or he just has incredibly poor comedic timing.
In any case, whether it’s a ridiculous game, comedy gone wrong or, in the worst case, neglecting to do proper research, Rick Santorum is the (not-so) proud recipient of this week’s #WTF Wednesday.
