The Buzz About Santorum

Just before Bostonist’s lunch break ended on June 27th an email popped into our inbox with the subject line "Santorum Blames Boston For The Catholic Priest Sex Scandal." Bostonist got all excited that we might be in the loop on some big, breaking story. The email we got linked out to the CapitolBuzz blog referencing a June 25 column in the Philadelphia Daily News. We read the article and actually, Santorum’s "blame" was laid in a 2002 article to Catholic Online. So we flagged the email, kept it in the inbox, and waited.

This Tuesday, the three year anniversary of Santorum’s article in Catholic Online, Bostonist waited for the T and flipped through the Boston Globe (which we got for a quarter). Santorum’s name was in the headline of an opinion piece by Bryan McGrory. The column took a closer look at what Santorum said in Catholic Online about Boston:

When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

McGrory then asked some prominent folks about the "news." Romney’s staff gave a very political answer, and followed up with a baseball reference. Menino offered to send Santorum a welcome wagon so that he could come and see just how great a place Boston is (no Phillyist, you can keep him!). We were surprised the blog tipster, CapitolBuzz, had seemingly inspired some buzz in the capitol.

Bostonist will save some words and just say that there’s a nasty game of politics going on in a my-state-is-better-than-yours kind of way. Follow the play-by-play each day this week in the Globe:
Tuesday: Globe publishes McGrory column on Santorum’s three-year-old comments.
Wednesday: Santorum stands by his statements, DC begins to churn, Barney Frank calls him a "jerk."
Thursday: Globe blasts Santorum for slur, Kennedy rips him a new one.
Friday: Ohhh, Bostonist just can wait to see how far this goes.