Bob McDonnell cited his own daughter's service in disagreeing with Rick Santorum. | AP Photos Va. gov hits Santorum combat remark

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell knocked Rick Santorum on Monday for saying he had “concerns” about women serving in frontline combat and cited his own daughter’s experience in the military to refute what some have characterized as the presidential candidate’s suggestion that women are less capable of performing combat duty.

“I like Rick Santorum a lot. I just disagree with any inference that he might have made that somehow women are not capable of serving in the frontlines and serving in combat positions. And I base that in part on my own daughter’s own experience as a platoon leader in Iraq with 25 men working with her,” McDonnell said on CNN. “She did a great job, was in some risky situations, and yet endured and led and I’m proud of her.”


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McDonnell, who had made similar comments at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend, explained on Monday that he had made the remarks to “make sure people didn’t think that women aren’t capable of doing the job.”

The governor noted that his daughter has “probably experienced some of those kinds of comments in the past, that somehow women in leadership positions in the military aren’t as much up for the job.”

“Look, she doesn’t pay attention to that and I think most women in leadership positions don’t. They go forward and lead and do well and serve our country in its highest tradition. So I don’t think it bothers them anymore,” he said.

Asked to respond to critics accusing him of using his CPAC speech to slam Mitt Romney’s rival, McDonnell, who has endorsed the former Massachusetts governor, said, “I was certainly making it clear that to the degree the inference of the senator was that women aren’t capable, I disagree and I think Mitt Romney disagrees.”

Santorum’s initial comments came during an interview with CNN’s John King last week, when he was asked whether the Pentagon should relax its rules on women taking frontline roles in combat.

“I do have concerns about women in frontline combat. … I think that can be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved,” Santorum had said.

The next day, the former senator attempted to clarify his remarks, saying he had been referring to the emotions of men, not women.

“When you have men and women together in combat, I think men have the emotions when you see a woman in harm’s way. … The issue is … how men would react to seeing women in harm’s way or potentially being injured or in a vulnerable position and not be concerned about accomplishing the mission,” he said on NBC.

McDonnell said on Monday that he would “accept” this explanation — “if that’s what he meant” — before adding, “There was at least an inference to the contrary that women are not up to speed and aren’t capable of leading and that I absolutely disagree with.”