Rick Santorum is the latest attempt to come up with an alternative to Mitt Romney. Everyone else has tried and failed, and now Santorum is heading for a fall.

But that’s just the warmup to this. Santorum apparently authored a book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good.

Well, George Stephanopoulos interviewed him on This Week, and well, this is how he decided to distance himself from the comments:

I know you were talking about the emotions of men who are — who are alongside the women, but also in your book, “It Takes a Family,” where you seem to suggest that a lot of women feel pressure to work outside the home because of radical feminism.

And what do you say to those who worry — believe that those kind of comments are going to alienate women, make you an easier candidate to beat in a general election?

SANTORUM: Well, that section of the book was co-written, if you want to be honest about it, by my wife, who is a nurse and a lawyer. And when she gave up that practice and she gave up, you know, nursing to raise a family, I mean, she felt very much that society was sort of — in many cases, looked down their nose at that decision. And all I’ve said is — and in talking with my wife and others like her — who’ve given up their careers that they should be affirmed in their decision like everybody else and that these are choices, and they’re tough choices.

You know, I grew up in a home where my mom and dad both worked. This was back in the ’50s and ’60s, and — which was very unusual. My mom actually made more money than my dad. So I grew up in a home where that was something that — that was a given, women in the workplace, and something that I obviously accepted.

But I think it’s important that women both outside the home and inside the home are affirmed for their choices they make, that they are, in fact, choices, and society, you know, treats them in a sense equally for whatever decision they make that’s best for them.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say that now, but you also wrote in the book that radical feminists have been making the pitch that justice demands that men and women be given an equal opportunity to make it to the top in the workplace. Isn’t that something that everyone should value?

SANTORUM: Yeah, I have no problem — I don’t know — that’s a new quote for me. I don’t know what context that was given. But the bottom line is that people should have equal opportunity to rise in the workforce. And, again, if you read the entire section, I don’t think anyone will have a problem with the fact that what I was calling for — very clearly calling for is the treatment of an affirmation of whatever decision women decide to make.

He didn’t claim a change of heart. He threw his wife under the bus; she’s the one who “co-wrote” the passages. That’s right folks. He’s the one who “wrote” the book, but she’s going to take the blame? Watch for this pattern to emerge as other issues confront Santorum in coming weeks.

Fact is that women aren’t pressured by feminists to work outside the home; they’re often working because the financial pressures to do so means that in order to keep to a certain lifestyle requires doing so. Santorum’s family situation may have allowed his wife the option to give up being a nurse to raise his family, but that’s an option that many simply don’t have.