There Are Things You Can Joke About

Grieving over the death of a child isn't one of them.   Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinsion went on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show to make these comments about Rick Santorum, and how he and his family grieved over the death of one of their children.

"He's not a little weird, he's really weird," Robinson said of Santorum. "And some of his positions that he has taken are just so weird that I think that some Republicans are off-put. Not everybody is not going to be down, for example, with the story of how he and his wife handled the stillborn child. It was a body that they took home to kind of sleep with it, introduce it to the rest of the family. It's a very weird story."

A day later when taken to task by Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Robinson said he didn't mean to offend.

“I certainly didn’t mean to offend anybody, especially Mr. Santorum,” Robinson added. “But it was in a discussion of his views, and, you know, which I consider extreme, and Santorum himself who is a cultural — culture warrior extraordinaire, whose faith — and we all appreciate someone of deep faith — but it is — it is extremely deep, and it’s a kind of faith that some people, I think, are going be… if not surprised by… at least want to know more about.”

“That’s fair enough, but is it the decision about what you do with an infant that passed away a highly personal decision?” Scarborough pressed. “This was not a stillborn child. This was an infant that was born and that lived for a few hours, and there are actually pediatric specialists who say the family needs to say good-bye to that sort of child. Children, if you make that decision, parents, could get closure that way too. Why touch it? Why would you even talk about it? That’s a really personal decision, isn’t it?”

“It is a personal decision,” Robinson noted. “And I’ve certainly been educated on the subject since — in the past day, so I do understand that — that this is not — it’s not something that’s in any way beyond the pale or considered inadvisable and that many grief counselors do advise a period of saying good-bye to a child who tragically dies in that way.”

“Do you wish you hadn’t written that part of it?” Scarborough asked.

“I didn’t write anything,” Robinson corrected. “I didn’t write this at all. It’s something I said on the air.”

“Do you wish you hadn’t said it?” Scarborough clarified. “You can see how prepared I am.”

“I wish I hadn’t said it that way, Joe.

I'm trying real hard to imagine some inoffensive way to describe how "really weird" it was for the Santorums to grieve over their loss, however they chose to deal with it.  Can Robinson be such a blockhead that he really didn't mean to offend?  Maybe, but I get a certain sense of viciousness in his description of "a body that they took home to kind of sleep with it."  And now he says he wishes he hadn't said it that way.  But he's clearly not sorry that he said it.

I think when Robinson was spouting off he pictured himself in the vanguard of the attack on Santorum.  He confirms the answer to a question Sissy Willis posed just yesterday: Is Rick Santorum the new Sarah Palin?  The answer is undoubtedly yes, Santorum is the latest liberal media target and Robinson wanted to be one of the first to jump on him with both feet.  Santorum is not just weird, he's really weird.  Maybe Robinson thought his idea might get picked up for Saturday Night Live skit to make his hilarious point.  A Pulitzer Prize for comedy?  Of course he never meant to offend.

By way of Hot Air.