Political Hotsheet
By

Rebecca Kaplan, Matthew Shelley /

CBS News/ February 23, 2012, 10:19 PM

Santorum: Obama wants to 'indoctrinate' students by boosting college enrollment

Santorum's rise to front-runner

DALLAS, Texas - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Thursday that President Obama wants more young adults to go to college so they can undergo "indoctrination" to a secular world view.

In an hour-long interview with conservative television host Glenn Beck, Santorum also defended his record on abortion and his vote in favor of President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind education law.

On the president's efforts to boost college attendance, Santorum said, "I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely ... The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country."

He claimed that "62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it," but declined to cite a source for the figure. And he floated the idea of requiring universities that receive public funds have "intellectual diversity" on campus.

Criticized by his Republican rivals for supporting the Bush education law, which increased government-mandated testing in schools, Santorum has said he voted for it as "part of the (GOP) team." He told Beck that as president, "I'll be the team leader, not the team member."

A champion of home-schooling, Santorum also expanded on his vision of dramatically reduced involvement in public education by both the states and the federal government, although he was more exact about eliminating the present system than his plan for replacing it.

He said, "Education should be the parental responsibility and the local community should be the one to be working with the parents to make sure that children get the best educational in environment for each child in America. The federal government needs to get out of education. The state government by and large needs to get out of education, other than making sure there are sufficient resources, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, to be able to help (have) some sort of equality of education in America ... to have the resources to have the best customized education."

Santorum also defended his anti-abortion rights record after the Huffington Post website recently reported on a 1995 Philadelphia Magazine story in which Santorum said he "was basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for Congress."

"No I wasn't," Santorum told Beck, chuckling. "I was in Congress in the 1990s and I had a 100-percent voting record in the 1990s ... When I first ran for Congress I was kind of an agnostic. I was a single male and not really interested in the issue, didn't really care. I was Catholic, but I had never really taken a public position on it."

Though discussions with his future father-in-law, a medical geneticist, he said he solidified his views. "I walked out of that meeting and said, 'Well, just from a standpoint of reason, I've got to be pro-life.' It was 1988 I think, or 1989."

Santorum was joined on the program by his wife, Karen, and a few of their seven children. Karen Santorum elaborated on her initial opposition to his presidential bid, citing the tough 2006 Senate race that he lost by 18 percentage points. Passage of Obama's health care initiative in 2010, he said, "put the fire in my belly."

"It's been challenging, I will tell you," she said, but expressed no regrets. "I think you'd have to be crazy to want it, to be honest with you. But at the same time for us, it's completely a spiritual thing. This is God's will," she said.

"For us it's all about making the world a better place and going after the issues and building America and making America more what our founding fathers wanted it to be," she said. "For me it has been a challenging year, but it's also been a very beautiful year."

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
267 Comments Add a Comment
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mary-miami says:
Parents are the ones that should have the right to decide what type of education their kids get. Public, Private or Home school..its all good. But Public education should always be available because the working poor barely earn enough to pay their rent and utilities, they wouldn't be able to afford buying school books. Everyone has a right to a free education. GOP wants to keep the working class ignorant so he can strip them of their rights. I will vote to re-elect President Obama.
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cleanelectric says:
Santorums real agenda is to deny college and keep people dumb so thay can only earn minimum wage and become further enslaved by his corporate buddies.

When Santorum says that America is under attack by the devil, he really means that he (Santorum) is the devil and it is He, who is ataacking all of us. He is warped and twisted, a classic sociopath.

A Christian God would not deny education to anyone.
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JoanneRans says:
RASMUSSEN POLL 2/23 - 2/26
Paul 43% Obama 41%
Romney 45% Obama 43%
Obama 45% Santorum 43%
Obama 49% Gingrich 39%

Why waste a vote on Santorum? He can't beat Obama and he didn't make the ballot in 4 key states. Unless you want Obama to win?
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mick7744 says:
by Ret_Ranger

All I can tell you is when I went to College in 70 after returning from fighting in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade - I was taking Anthropology and this Professor was talking trash about this "Theory of Evolution" and there was no God

He said "If there's a God - come down and knock me out!"

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Hey RAT-Ranger...

Didn't you always claim to be a retired E-9 Sgt Major who did 30 or so years in the Army while regaling these boards with your BS war stories? Now you're claiming to have been a college student in 1970

Which one is true (or are they both BS?)

You are obviously too stupid to be capable of remembering what REM lies you have told IN PRINT
on these boards...

Since you claim to be a grizzled old retired vet, I know I don't have to explain to you what an REM is...

It must be just awful spending all your waking hours trying to convince strangers that you were (and are) something that you're not...and never was.

I was always sure that anyone who insists that they are hard-charging Sgt Rock types was bound to be as phoney as a three dollar bill...

And while we're on the subject of three dollar bills there RAT-Ranger...

You've got a lot of dog in you RAT-Ranger...and I suspect what ain't dog is weasel (or rat...snake...slug...etc)

BTW big mouth...are your eyes brown or are you full of blue...green...grey...or hazel bull$h!t?
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Zann-Zel replies:
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LOL...hey mick, that was a Joke he was telling! A very old joke even! Have you really never heard it before?
mick7744 replies:
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But Zann-Zel...

i know it was a joke! Everything this blowhard phony says is a joke...only not necessarily a funny joke.

Is that what you...and he, she or it...call poetic licence...just add in any BS "facts" that enhances your story?

He said, "ALL I CAN TELL YOU IS WHEN I WENT TO COLLEGE IN 70"...YADA YADA YADA...

Why then, should I believe that he EVER served in Vietnam as a little man with big boots who wore headgear favored by girl scouts?

Am I supposed to be grateful that Rat-Ranger didn't try to pass himself off as a Marine?

Since we obviously can't believe EVERYTHING this self-aggrandizing BS artist says...only a damn fool would believe ANYTHING he (or she) says)

He's told stories about his military past lifted in some cases verbatim from from paperback war novels or from trash like Soldier of Fortune Magazine.

Just his (or her) speed...like his (or her) babbling on so incessantly about the "Stolen Valor" of others

I suspect that stolen valor is the one subject this bogus motormouth warrior is truly an authority on.

I think he should get on his Hondamatic 250 and leave...the planet!

I dunno, Zann-Zel...he just p1sses me off...
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jimbobkalina says:
He has a graduate degree but wants the poor to stay ignorant, so the wealthy can controll them. He is an evil man, and a hipocrit of worst kind.
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mins42012 replies:
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Thank you. It nice to know that someone else have noticed.
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moretruthnow says:
Santorum is an ugly man with nothing but ugly things to say. He has a hateful opinion of caring about our environment, caring about public schools, caring about college education, and now has come out against birth control and women having rights. Nothing this man will ever say will be honest and Christian. He is a mean and unworthy man who would further ruin this country with republican ideology that is against this country but for the one percent.
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gwbdopesmoker says:
This man-boy is a moron.
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mins42012 replies:
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Oh Yes he is!!!!!
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technocoffee says:
Just like the Taliban/Muslim extremists in many Islamic countries don't want women educated because it will clue them in at what a ridiculous male-centered lie they've been living, Santorum & the neo-nazi Right don't want people educated about being serfs on the estate of the Corporate Feudal Lord...
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shanepgh says:
insanitorium wants us to return the the dark ages when everyone was fed lies by the catholic church. to his way of thinking that's an improvement over teaching actual facts to children. it's a sad day when a significant portion of the people in our society take someone like him seriously. this kind of anti-education mentality is very dangerous.
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Lindag10 says:
by JV1970 February 26, 2012 1:45 AM EST
I'm not jealous of beanpoles and scarecrows.

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Why should you be? LMAO
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