What is it about MSNBC that seems to make it impossible for its anchors to consistently tell the truth?
On Thursday's Hardball, host Chris Matthews falsely claimed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum "said it would be fine with him if states outlawed the sale of birth control" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me go back to Congresswoman Speier, and again, I respect your views so much on this because of the fact that you are who you are. I want to ask you this. I didn’t put that on [unintelligible] what Foster Friess said. He is a major spokesman now for, for former Senator Santorum. He’s out there a lot all the time. And he is now representing a candidate, Santorum, who has said it would be fine with him if states outlawed the sale of birth control. I mean, you’re talking about a guy from the Cro-Magnon Era in terms of politics. And there he has his guy out there making a joke about women. I mean, talk about an insulting comment as Congresswoman Norton, that was insulting, clearly. What do you make of this that we’re still in a world where this is still going on, that point of view?
WRONG!
Here's what Santorum told the Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger on January 6 about this very subject:
“I was asked if I believed in it, and I said, ‘No, I’m a Catholic, and I don’t.’ I don’t want the government to fund it through Planned Parenthood, but that’s different than wanting to ban it; the idea I’m coming after your birth control is absurd. I was making a statement about my moral beliefs, but I won’t impose them on anyone else in this case. I don’t think the government should be involved in that. People are free to make their own decisions.’’
The former Pennsylvania senator recently told ABC’s Jake Tapper that, yes, he disagrees with Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that struck down a ban on contraception.
He said Friday evening that it’s the idea that states don’t have a right to pass such a law that he opposes, because he does not see the right to privacy as a constitutional right envisioned by its signers. This is hardly a new argument.
“It could have been a law against buying shoestrings; that it was contraception has nothing to do with it. States have the right to pass even dumb laws.”
To be clear, he does think that laws banning birth control would be dumb “for a number of reasons. Birth control should be legal in the United States. The states should not ban it, and I would oppose any effort to ban it.’’
Shouldn't that have ended claims that Santorum "said it would be fine with him if states outlawed the sale of birth control?"
Apparently not if you work for M-BS-NBC.
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