Ugly, Cheap, and Tawdry: Newsweek Goes After Santorum's Wife

I am no fan of Rick Santorum, but the various "news" stories circulating about his wife's romantic life before she met, dated, or married him are totally inappropriate. Reasonable people can disagree about how much attention a candidate for public office's personal life should receive. Yet, I see no reasonable public or journalistic purpose served by digging around into the private life---the twenty-three year old private life---of candidates' spouses. In fact, the net result of this kind of junk is that excellent people stay out of presidential politics. Rick Santorum is exactly right in saying:

It's ugly, it's cheap, it's tawdry... It has no relationship to the issues at hand in this race, and we're gonna treat it just like the ridiculous stuff that you see where you treat it for the value it is, which is zero.

So, congratulations, Newsweek, you just made me agree with Rick Santorum.