Rick Santorum - flip flops on Lobbyist meetings!

The Washington Post is reporting something verrry interesting about our boy Rick.

Here, I'll let them tell it. Here's the lede:

After saying in January that he would end his regular meetings with lobbyists, the third-ranking Republican leader in the Senate has continued to meet with many of the same lobbyists at the same time and on the same day of the week.

Imagine that.

There's a saying, my friends, that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

The next two paragraphs are interesting in a "between the lines" sort of way:

[Santorum] suspended his biweekly encounters on Jan. 30. His decision came after the guilty plea of lobbyist Jack Abramoff to charges of conspiring to corrupt public officials.

But in the month since his announcement, Santorum has held two meetings attended by the same core group of lobbyists, and has used the sessions to appeal for campaign aid, according to participants.

So he suspended the biweekly meetings on Monday, January 30. But the article says that "in the month since his announcement", Santorum held two meetings at the same time during the week (Tuesday mornings). There were four Tuesdays in February, (the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th) so when was the first Tuesday morning meeting?

If it was the 7th, then Rick's "suspension" of the Tuesday morning lobbyist meetings lasted exactly 8 days. Since there were two Tuesday meetings, the first had to occur no later than the 21st (making room for the second on the 28th). So Rick Santorum's grand gesture of suspending the lobbyist meetings lasted somewhere between 8 and 22 days. What a committment to principles! The suspension lasted (at most) one day more than three weeks!

To be completely honest, the meetings were held in different places. The original Santorum-lobbyist meetings were held in the Capital. The new Santorum-lobbyist meetings were reportedly held three blocks away at the HQ of the RNSC. The next meeting was at the Heritage Foundation around the corner. Must've been some walk for all those lobbyists.

Hey, do you think the republican lobbyists had any trouble finding the RNSC or the Heritage Foundation? Just asking.

Here's Rick's defense (weasel word alert):

Mark Rodgers, staff director of the Senate Republican Conference, explained that the old meetings had been sponsored by the conference, had sometimes included other lawmakers, and had been meant to get out the GOP message to interested groups in Washington. The recent meetings were largely about how to help Santorum’s fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

So that makes it completely and entirely different. It only looks like Rick is still meeting with lobbyists at the same time of the week. It only looks like exactly the same meeting that Rick said he suspended in late January.

Yea, it only looks like Rick Santorum is telling the truth about this.

Rick Santorum - his word's good for about 3 weeks (maybe).