Lies Gingrich and Santorum Told Me

The Corner has two interesting items today re: candidates Gingrich and Santorum.

The Newtster is obviously selective in his criticism of private equity firms, especially when they’re not named Bain. When paid forty grand to give speech by Partners LLC (a PE firm), private equity was, if not the greatest thing since sliced bread, pretty close to it. From a Bloomberg TV transcript:

PAUL LEVY [managing director, Partners LLC]: “Yeah. We paid to the Washington Speakers Bureau for Newt Gingrich to come and speak. He was great, he gave a great evening, everybody had fun, he fielded a lot of questions, he gave us a lot of time. But nobody praised private equity, risk taking, –”

STEPHANIE RUHLE: “Wow.”

PAUL LEVY: “– capital, more fulsomely than Newt Gingrich.”

Meanwhile, back at the Sanctum Santorum, as some will recall, during the last debate, Senator Rick invoked Elayne Bennett in an attack on the lack of family values of the Obama Administration, going so far as to say they prevented Bennett’s Best Friends program from recommending marriage to inner city teenage girls. No so, says Bennett:

I respect and admire Senator Santorum and appreciate his concern for inner city girls. I must correct a statement attributed to me in the Republican presidential debate Monday January 16th.

The Department of Health and Human Services changed the policy for the Healthy Marriage grant awardees in 2009. Under the new policy, abstinence from sexual activity was not to be discussed within our Healthy Marriage program. The word abstinence was to be removed from all our curriculum utilized in this grant funded program. Marriage and the benefits of marriage continued to be an integral part of the curriculum.

I am concerned that Senator Santorum’s statement during the debate could be flagged as inaccurate. I hope the campaign will make a timely correction.