As predictable as ever, right on the heels of Pres. Candidate Rick Santorum's virtual tie with fellow candidate Mitt Romney, the liberal wrecking crew changed targets to the new rising conservative. As with every other Republican candidate, from Bachmann to Cain to Newt, the mainstream media and the Obama regime is determined to destroy Santorum before he can get much traction. Earlier this week they fired their first shot...though the overwhelming opinion, even among liberals is that it was misfired below the belt.
Alan Colmes, liberal commentator and contributor to FoxNews, chose to take exception to the way the Santorums dealt with the tragedy of the death of their infant son, Gabriel, 16 years ago. Let's put aside that it is incredibly bad taste, and down right cruel, to bring up such a subject after so long and focus on the fact that he chose to portray the incident in the absolute worst light possible, claiming that the Sen. Santorum took his dead son home to "play with it."
Here is the real story:
Sixteen years ago Rick and Karen Santorum were blessed with the news that they were expectinig a child. Now keep in mind that the Santorums are devout in their Catholic Faith and staunchly pro-life. So, at 20 weeks, just five months along, the baby, whom they named Gabriel, was diagnosed with a birth defect that is fatal unless treated. It was determined that surgery was needed and mother and baby were eligible for the procedure. The operation was a complete success and Gabriel was healed. Unfortunately, an infection developed in the amniotic sac. Ms. Santorum was rushed to the hospital wit ha high fever and having contractions. While begging for the doctors to stop her going into labor they were informed that it was impossible and if they were to try she would die from the infection as it was untreatable.
At 20 weeks, Gabriel Santorum was born grossly premature and survived only two hours. The controversial part of this tragedy was that instead of the simply forgetting about the child and having it taken away to the morgue, they decided to celebrate even this brief bit of life. Rick and Karen baptized the child slept the night in the hospital with Gabriel between them and in the morning, on thier way to bury him, they stopped by their home to show the baby to their other children so that they would understand the situation.
Has our society become so apathetic to the sanctity of human life that a grieving family is brought under fire for how the cope with such a loss?
My question is what right has Colmes, or anyone for that matter, to judge Mr. and Ms Santorum? Have they been through anything even remotely similar?
I have, thankfully, never had to experience such a tragedy. I am not even a parent yet, so I can't even speak to the joys of fatherhood. However, I have known people who have gone through the heartache of a miscarriage of stillbirth. That kind of anguish is hell on the mind, body and soul. It is a blow to both heart and faith. So much so that doctors encourage mothers to name these children to help cope with the loss. To make it real and bring them closure. Is what the Santorum family did so different?
Being such pro-life conservatives they could not simply let an orderly take the child off to the morgue and be done with it. So they baptized him as family and spent at least one night as parents comforting their child.
And I am sure, as any parent would do who already has kids and is again expecting, that they kept their children involved and excited for the new addition to the family. Perhaps they had the children put a had to the mother's belly telling them that this was their brother they were going to meet. Being faithful Catholics, I am sure they told their children how precious each and every life is. So what message would they be giving their children if they simply came home without a baby and just said, "Oh well, there is no brother coming lets move on."
Kids are not dumb and are very intuitive. They can feel when something is wrong and would be just as affected by such a loss as the parents. So the Santorums, on the way to bury thier infant son, made sure that their children saw their brother. They took the time to show them that the child was real, and precious, and family but something awful had happened. They didn't defile a corpse. There was no heathen ritual performed at the Santorum home. There was only true and deep felt grief and a family trying the best they could to deal with their emotions.
To bring up such a painful memory to take a cheap political shot at the new conservative front runner is beyond low. It is truly disgusting and calls into question the existence of Colmes' soul, in my opinion if no one else's.
Perhaps more chilling is that there is, as usual, not one peep from the President, and his party, that preaches to Republicans about civility in discourse. While conservative are excoriated for simply reporting unsavory facts about liberals, liberals can say vile things, as Alan Colmes has done, and get away with a half-hearted apology if even that
Colmes did apologize quickly when he realized that his cheap shot misfired. Like a true christian, Rick Santorum turned the other cheek and graciously accepted the insincere apology. What a shame that he had to accept such an apology.
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