WOO HOO! Skeletons from 2006 come surging out of Rick "The Surge" Santorum's closet. CAIN!

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Santorum Surge Brings Ethics Questions
By MATTHEW MOSK and BRIAN ROSS | ABC News – 1 hr 41 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/santorum-surge-brings-ethics-questions-152702229.html

Rick Santorum's powerful finish in the Iowa caucus is bringing fresh attention to his tenure in Congress, including ethics questions that dogged him about a preferred mortgage he received from a bank run by campaign donors, and federal funds that went to a real estate developer who backed his charity.

One of the top donors to Santorum's charity was also the beneficiary of an $8 million Santorum-sponsored federal earmark, according to published reports. Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who filed an ethics complaint against Santorum in 2006 on behalf of a watchdog group, said her organization's website received a tidal wave of visitors in the past 24 hours, and in an interview she said she believes people will discover that the GOP presidential contender is "hardly the moral paragon he purports to be."

"There were several instances in which Santorum appeared to have taken campaign contributions in direct exchange for legislative assistance," said Sloan, whose organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), spent months investigating Santorum's activities while he was in office. "He violated Senate gift rules by accepting a mortgage from a bank in which he had no interest and which otherwise made loans only to its own investors."

Santorum has rarely responded to such attacks, but at one point he wrote a letter to a Philadelphia newspaper criticizing the ethics complaints as a series of "disingenuous innuendo and half-truths." The Senate Committee on Ethics never responded to CREW's complaint, and the two-term senator left Congress in 2007 after losing a reelection bid. A Santorum campaign spokesman has not yet responded to phone messages and email requests for comment.

[SomethingFishy]

1. The guy has more bones in his closet

than Hannibal Lector.

He and Gingrich both never had a prayer thanks to their "closets".

[southernyankeebelle]

8. I bet their closets are full of bones that they can't even close the cloth door.

[rocktivity]

2. Santorum is perfectly ethical

between consenting adults.


rocktivity

[opihimoimoi]

3. Titanic Anchors around his neck prevent crossing of Oval Channel.....too weak...too lolo....too dumb

[livetohike]

4. Why is no one asking him about his meddling in the Terry Shiavo case?

Government oversight in a very personal family matter. It's one of the major reasons he lost so badly in 2006 to Sen. Casey. I'm embarrassed that Santorum is from Pennsylvania.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Yah, well Wisconsin has a fair collection of embarrassments too.

Besides the obvious ones, there's Senator Sunspot Johnson, Paul Ryan, Jim Sensenbrenner…

Just don't want you guys hogging all the shame.

[KamaAina]

11. Well, take heart.

He actually lives in Virginia, and has since he was in the Senate representing* PA.

[livetohike]

12. There's that too. In fact, the house he claimed to live in was in the neighboring town to where

I grew up. There's a lot of dirt on this scum bag.

[powergirl]

5. Everytime he talks, a bone flies out of his mouth n/t

[spanone]

6. k&r...

[DCKit]

7. Another "Friend of Angelo's"?

(D) or (R), they should all have been investigated and booted out of Congress.

[FSogol]

9. Mitt has already turned his eye to Santorum.

Expect to see two weeks of anti-Santorum stuff pouring into the media.

Hope everyone is stocked up on popcorn!