CNN Dumps Rick Santorum Over Racist Remarks

I have long despised Rick Santorum who, in my view, is a closeted self-loathing gay man who cannot let go of his warped Roman Catholic upbringing - like Santorum, I was raised Catholic and know too well what it does to a young gay's mind and the self-hatred it engenders - who has consistently sought to harm normal, well adjusted LGBT Americans. (Ken Cuccinelli is another such Catholic raised individual who has still not figured out that fathering seven children - like Santorum - did not magically make him heterosexual).  But Santorum's bigotry doesn't extend just to gays as demonstrated by his recent comments on Native Americans that smacked of white supremacy and seemingly supported the horrific genocide committed against the original inhabitants of America. Thankfully, CNN is belatedly ditching Santorum as a political commentator - something that should have happened years ago.  A piece in Politico looks at Santorum being shown the door.  Here are excerpts:

CNN is cutting ties with former Republican senator and current TV analyst Rick Santorum over disparaging comments he made about Native American culture.

On CNN, Santorum was a senior political commentator who was often tasked with giving the Republican point of view during campaign coverage. His parting ways with the network was confirmed Saturday by Alison Rudnick, vice president of HLN Communications and CNN Diversity and Inclusion.

He sparked controversy in an April 23 speech before the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organization. Santorum said immigrants created a nation based on the Judeo-Christian ethic from a blank slate.

“We birthed a nation from nothing,” he said. “Yes, there were Native Americans, but there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”

The comment prompted Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, to call him “an unhinged and embarrassing racist who disgraces CNN and any other media company that provides him a platform.”

“To correct the record, what European colonizers found in the Americas were thousands of complex, sophisticated, and sovereign tribal nations, each with millennia of distinct cultural, spiritual and technological development,” she wrote in a statement.

Santorum later said on Chris Cuomo’s CNN show that he “misspoke” in the sense that it wasn’t clear that he was speaking in the context of the founding of the United States government.

Santorum's comments have garnered blowback before, especially his views on gay marriage and homosexuality. In 2003, he infuriated gay rights advocates by appearing to compare homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality. 

 Santorum also knows little history, since the U.S. Constitution borrowed from the organization structure of the Iroquois Confederacy.