The president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO said Wednesday he was wrong to have referred to Adolf Hitler while criticizing Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.
"When I think about his votes against working families, I get angry and I said something I shouldn't have," Bill George said in a statement issued in response to criticism from Santorum's campaign and Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
In a story Sunday in The (Harrisburg) Patriot-News, George commented on the contrasting styles of Santorum, a conservative firebrand who is the Senate's No. 3 Republican, and his low-key challenger, Democrat Bob Casey. George said Santorum feeds off negative passions and lacks true charisma.
"Some see him as Hitler, 'I'm right' and 'we have to go kill them' and 'the hell with the poor and the working class and we have to protect the rich," the newspaper quoted George.
The quote drew a belated response Wednesday from Santorum's campaign, which drew attention to it in an e-mail to reporters, and Dole, who called upon Casey's campaign to denounce George's "outrageous" remark.
In May 2005, Santorum came under fire for referring to Hitler in defending his party's right to ban Democratic filibusters designed to block votes on President Bush's judicial nominations. Santorum said he "meant no offense" in invoking the Nazi leader's name.
To explain his own choice of words, George borrowed a Santorum quote from that earlier dispute: "It was meant to dramatize the principle of an argument, not to characterize." |