Joe Scarborough could learn a lot from Foster Friess.
Unlike Scarborough, who wouldn’t admit he was wrong and came out looking like a fool this week. Mr. Friess is at least humble enough to know when he’s said something really stupid and willing to admit it publicly. That’s not easy to do when you have to admit it to the entire nation.
Rick Santorum’s Super PAC money man Foster Friess has asked for our forgiveness. Okay, he is forgiven for the bad “joke.” Or as I prefer to call it, falling victim to a Michael Kinsleyism, which in Washington is defined as a gaffe a person makes when he or she inadvertently speaks the truth.
Last week my joke at the Conservative Political Action Conference generated laughter and media attention. Today on Andrea Mitchell’s show, my aspirin joke bombed as many didn’t recognize it as a joke but thought it was my prescription for today’s birth control practices. In fact, the only positive comments I got were from folks who remembered it from 50 years back. Birth control pills weren’t yet available, so everyone laughed at the silliness on how an aspirin could become a birth control pill.
After listening to the segment tonight, 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. My wife constantly tells me I need new material—she understood the joke but didn’t like it anyway—so I will keep that old one in the past where it belongs.
What is not forgiven is his backing of a religious conservative candidate whose intentions are to strip women of rights granted us through fights in the court we’ve won.
What is not forgiven is the Old Coot routine that is elevating and keeping alive Rick Santorum, a misogynist, homophobic, blue collar charmer whose brand of snake oil would unleash a war with Iran.
What is not forgiven is Foster Friess is yet another rich white fat cat who thinks it’s okay for a select few to buy a nomination and the presidency.
Other than that, he’s forgiven, though we all know through his backing of Rick Santorum that like his religious conservative friend, this entire team believes the purpose of women is to be the rock behind a man, instead of her own island where she grants him sanctuary when he needs it.
“What is not forgiven is Foster Friess is yet another rich white fat cat who thinks it’s okay for a select few to buy a nomination and the presidency.”
Ms. Marsh….I lovez ya….ya KNOWZ I doez….but you are wrong.
I forgive him. In fact I encourage him to back santorum to the hilt with his gentle wit and millions!! MAKE HIM THE CANDIDATE!!! After all, santorum really is the mentality of the howling at the moon, shit house rat crazy buffoons who make up the base of the repugnantklaner/teabagger party isn’t he?
Republicans may get the candidate they deserve yet, Rick Santorum.
It’s no secret I prefer Mitt Romney, with a secret, unspoken hope he’d pick Transvaginal Probe Man Bob McDonnell for his veep.
I want the discussion on money in politics, which I think is the biggest issue ruining our system of policy & government, which both Obama and Romney represent.
Meanwhile, Biden obliterates McDonnell on women in a debate. Because if Transvaginal Probe Bob’s policy isn’t Violence Against Women nothing is. (I still think Chris Christie is the smart choice for Mitt, IF he can still buy this thing, but we all know smart isn’t exactly in this year on the GOP side of things.)
But if it’s to be Rick Santorum there is a lot of benefit to that, because women will put a hurt on Republicans from which the religious right will be hard pressed to recover.
Disclosure: I will not be backing any candidate in November, though I’ve made no secret that I’m very encouraged by Elizabeth Warren’s run in Massachusetts.
Mark my words Taylor,
Chris Christie will self destruct. He is the darling of the NYC media but he is a gargantuan jerk. Sooner or later he is going to step into it big time.
Plus, I know this is shallow, but we are a very shallow nation, Christie is too fat for national politics, he needs to drop near a hundred pounds, do a Huckabee, before he can be a player on the national stage.
One more thing, I bet you dollars to donuts that he has zero interest in the VP slot. He can see the good ship Romney headed toward an iceberg and he wants no part of that.
I agree that he’ll self-destruct, but I disagree about the weight issue. To clarify: yes, his weight would be a problem for, oh, 99.999% of politicians. But like his positions or not, he’s got a lot of charisma and that goes a long way. Not to mention a third of Americans are obese and a lot more are overweight.
The biggest hurdle wouldn’t be his appearance, IMO, but the perception that he isn’t healthy enough to be president (i.e. the “he could have a heart attack any moment” argument). But I honestly think that would be as easily diffused as the age issue. Some people suffer age-related physical and mental health related problems as they get into their seventies and beyond, and some remain healthy and sharp well into their nineties. And as John McCain’s mother showed us in 2008, a lot of that can be demonstrated by family history and medical evaluations. It’s sort of the same with weight- some people get that big and rapidly develop type-2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome (etc), and others don’t. While I think his weight will always be troubling for some, just as age is always troubling for some, I believe that the troubled will remain on the fringes as long as Christie is declared to be healthy enough by a doctor or twelve.
“But like his positions or not, he’s got a lot of charisma and that goes a long way.”
“Somethings goin down sweetheart and it ain’t us”
Oh yeah, he has a LOT of Charisma!!
secularhumanizinevoluter: I don’t seem to have a reply button for your reply, but I’ll put it here.
I didn’t say I liked Christie, but I didn’t like Ronald Regan or George W. Bush either. However, in all three of those cases there are a lot of people that do. He has charisma as compared to, say, Mitt Romney.
A TURNIP has charisma compared to mittens.
A TURNIP has charisma compared to mittens.
HA! Fair enough!
I was hoping old coot Foster’s wife would give him trouble.
In some ways I almost feel sorry for this old man. He told a joke that he clearly thought was witty with no idea how it would play with the public in 2012. He had no idea how out of touch he sounded- which is the definition of “out of touch” I suppose.
However, I don’t believe for one minute the joke was intended to be about “silliness on how an aspirin could become a birth control pill” or how hilariously uninformed people were about contraception back in the day. Regardless of how anyone tries to spin it, it was a joke- an old and offensive one- about how women should keep their legs closed if they don’t want to get pregnant.
It’s offensive on so many levels. There’s the demonization of women’s sexuality. There’s the completely unrealistic and outdated idea that unmarried women shouldn’t have sex. There’s the double standard and complete lack of regard for the fact that it takes two to make a baby (he wasn’t suggesting any ridiculous methods for men to keep it in their pants). There’s the jaw-dropping ignorance about the cost of birth control and the burden that puts on working women and families. There’s the deft side-stepping of the fact that even married women- the ones for whom it is permissible to have sex by even the most conservative standards- also need access to contraception for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is economic. There is the callous poo-pooing of women’s needs in general.
I just can’t with this guy. Just can’t.
Having this clown say he’s sorry because he told a bad joke just doesn’t cut it. Every time one of these cavemen get caught in their sexist comments they try to say, oh wait it was just a bad joke. Its whats behind the joke that tells me he meant every word. This man and his boss are first class pigs and from my point of view neither of them get a pass.
If we can forgive one old man:
Reid stated that Obama could be a successful candidate because he is “light skinned” and that he speaks with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
We can forgive another.
Ah, the old tit for tat argument. No one party holds all the cards when it comes to sexism and racism. I for one don’t forgive any of them, it just so happens that there seems to be a hell of a lot more of them in the tea baggin republican party.
Likely, and what I hoped to demonstrate, was that both parties are full of out of touch old men that are sexist, racist and bigoted.
Not forgiving either is a great answer. I would forgive both, but, it’s consistancy that counts.
Are you really stupid enough to try to equate stating a political fact with making a misogynistic jok…..wait a second….this IS pathetic widdle troll…never mind.
Do you mean to say that there is a demonstrable ‘negro dialect’? Are you really that stupid?
Don’t spend much time around academia or cultural studies departments do you?
Care to go to any member of an African American Studies department at any major University and try to tell THEM there isn’t?
Yes, apparently you really ARE as stupid as you come across.