YouTube is great! No matter how many aspersions the candidate's minions cast against the media, saying that statements were taken out of context, the candidate clearly said what the newspaper reported, and it will affect the vote on Sunday, and that's that!:
Rick Santorum's campaign has launched an offensive against reports that the Republican presidential candidate suggested that Puerto Rico would have to adopt English as its principal language in order to become a state.
The flap began when the San Juan newspaper El Vocero reported that Santorum had said he supported Puerto Ricans' right to self-determination but that he would not support adding a state in which English wasn't the primary language.
"Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law," Santorum said, according to a Reuters report about the interview. "And that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language."
The statement raised red flags for two reasons: It offended some Puerto Ricans, including a delegate who withdrew his support for Santorum. And it incorrectly suggested that under federal law there is an English-language requirement for new states.
Santorum told reporters the following day that he had been "maliciously" mischaracterized. English should be the "preferred" language, he said, but he would not insist that the island change its official language to English alone.
El Vocero posted a video of an interview in which Santorum clearly states that English is a "requirement" and would be a "condition for admission."
"As I have said repeatedly, that, as a condition for admission, that people would -- well, they could speak both languages -- but have to speak English," Santorum said in the videotaped interview. "That would be a requirement. It's a requirement that we put on other states as a condition for entering the Union. If you're going to participate as a state in the United States, then you need to participate in the language of -- the people speak in the states."
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