By MIKE JONES Associate Editor on Feb 17, 2012, at 4:13 PM Updated on 2/17 at 4:13 PM
JONEZIN
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I’m really reluctant to blog twice in a row about Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, but he (or his helpers) keeps saying stuff that is, well, outrageous.
The latest kerfuffle is courtesy of one of Santorum’s big financial backers, Foster Friess. I had to pause there for a chuckle. I just can’t help thinking this guy’s name sounds like a frozen drink at a drive-inn. “I’ll have a strawberry Foster Friess and an order of cheese fries.”
Anyway, Friess was being interviewed on MSNBC about the controversy concerning the Catholic church and government-mandated health care. You know what that’s about so I won’t bother explaining it again.
Friess, what a funny guy, said that back in his day women used Bayer aspirin for birth control. "The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn't that costly," he quipped.
OK, we’ve all heard that joke before. Well, maybe not since around 1970 but, nevertheless, we were aware of it. It’s still not funny.
Well, all hell broke loose and Friess issued an apology and candidate Santorum went on defense and disavowed the comment.
The apology by Friess rang hollow to me. He wrote in a blog: "After listening to the segment ... I can understand how I confused people with the way I worded the joke and their taking offense is very understandable. To all those who took my joke as modern day approach I deeply apologize and seek your forgiveness."
He later suggested that aspirin as a form of contraception "is pretty ridiculous and quite funny."
Yeah, that’s funny stuff, Foster. I don’t think anyone actually was offended that he might have suggested the aspirin trick as a modern-day approach to contraception. They took it for what it was, an offensive joke.
Then along comes Santorum with his evasive approach. On a CBS morning show he said: "It was a bad joke, it was a stupid joke. It's not reflective of me or my record on this issue. This is the same gotcha politics that you get from the media and I'm just not going to play that game."
Ah, the old Sarah Palin-Newt Gingrich “lame stream media” attack.
He then dragged out the Obama-Rev.Wright controversy of three years ago. "With President Obama what you did was you went out and defended him against someone who he sat in a church for for 20 years and defended him that oh, he can't possibly believe what he listened to for 20 years. It's a double standard, it's what you're pulling off and I'm going to call you on it."
Call away, sir. Where was Santorum three years ago? The media dogged Obama for weeks after Wright’s heated comments were aired.
But truth has no place in today’s politics. It’s easier to get your followers to believe a lie than it is to explain the truth.
The more Santorum talks, the more it is obviuos that his views of women and their place in our world are at odds with the majority of women in the country.
The “joke” taken on the surface is just a bad one. But it also sends the message that women should abandon any personal, sexual life until a man comes along willing to impregnate her. After all, as my colleague Janet Pearson pointed out recently, to many men, women are little more than a “container.”
How’s that for a laugh?
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