Santorum's Family Affair

The senator puts his children in a TV ad saying opponents "criticized us," but the criticism really was levied at their father.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum shows his children claiming that political opponents have criticized him "for moving us to Washington," and that "they criticized us for attending a Pennsylvania public school over the Internet." In fact, the critique was of Santorum, not his children. And the controversy was over money, not Santorum's family values.

The ad is Santorum's response to accusations by local officials that he exploited a Pennsylvania program that paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition for his children to be educated via a publicly supported Internet charter school while the family was living in Virginia.

ANALYSIS