Rick Santorum was asked by CNN's John King about an incident at a Florida town hall where a woman in the audience questioned President Obama's citizenship and claimed that he is a Muslim and unlike John McCain who ran into some similar situations in 2008, Santorum didn't feel the need to correct the audience member.
KING: Senator, at your event there earlier today a woman stood up and she delivered a pretty “out there” attack on the President and I want you to listen.
WOMAN: I never refer to Obama as President because legally he is not the president. He constantly says that our Constitution is passe and he totally ignores it as you know he does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim.
KING: This is how you responded.
SANTORUM: I'm doing my best to try to get him out of the government, right? I am. And you're right about how he uniformly ignores the Constitution.
KING: You're not responsible for what somebody in the audience says Senator. I want to make that perfectly clear, but do you feel any sense or responsibility to say whoa? Senator McCain repeatedly in 2008 stopped people who went down that line and said look, let's fight them on policy. Let's not go there.
SANTORUM: I have repeatedly done that. I don’t feel it’s my obligation every time someone says something I don’t agree with to contradict them and the President's a big boy and he can defend himself and his record and I'm going to go out and talk about the issues that the President and I disagree on and try to defeat him because I think that's the best thing we can do for the future of our country.
KING: I understand on every point, but something like that, standing up saying he's an avowed Muslim, you don’t feel an obligation to say, “Ma’am, let’s fight him on taxes, let’s fight him on spending, let’s fight him on the size of government but let’s not do that”?
SANTORUM: I think I repeated that many, many times throughout the course of this campaign. I don't really feel an obligation to go out and repeat it over and over again as people bring that up. My position's clear, the President's position's clear. I don't think the President's a Muslim, but I don't think it's my obligation to go out and repeat that every time someone who feels that way says something.
While it may be true that Santorum isn't responsible for questions he's asked during his campaign stops, it might help matters or make his excuse more believable here if he were not just bragging about an endorsement from World Net Daily's wingnut birther, Joseph Farah -- Santorum Touts Birther Endorsement.
