Lou Dobbs: Friess' Remarks Aren't Vulgar Because They Wouldn't Receive an 'R' Rating
It seems ABC's This Week is continuing their goal of becoming Fox-lite with the inclusion of Lou Dobbs on the panel this Sunday. Can't we get Paul Krugman back to refute some of George Will's hackery instead of being treated to guests like Dobbs, and Laura Ingraham and Dana Loesch? Dobbs did his best to play the "blame the media" game here by claiming that it's the press that drummed up the outrage over Santorum Super-funder Foster Friess' remarks that women could "put an aspirin between their legs" as a means of contraception.
Sorry Lou, but it's not just the media trumping up whether his remarks were truly offensive. They were offensive to anyone that heard the remarks because women don't want to be made ashamed for having sex and told to keep their legs shut in the year 2012. They also don't want someone lying about the cost of contraception and the availability to women of all income levels.
Both Dee Dee Myers and Clarence Page did a good job here of explaining exactly why Friess' remarks don't reflect well on the Santorum campaign, not that he seems to be needing much help these days with all of the other offensive remarks he's already made on the topic of women's reproductive rights and health.
Transcript below the fold.
TAPPER: And one of the -- one of the things that goes on in campaigns, of course, is you have supporters, you have surrogates, and sometimes they go a little bit off message. Rick Santorum has a support named Foster Friess. He went on Andrea Mitchell's show the other day. Here is Foster Friess and Rick Santorum being asked to account for his comments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRIESS: And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it's such inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn't that costly.
SANTORUM: This is the same "gotcha" politics that you get from the media. And I'm just not going to play that game. I'm not responsible for any comment that anybody who supports me make, and my record stands for itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Here we are, days later, weeks later after this contraception thing, and they're still -- it's still being discussed. Now, maybe it's the media that's discussing it, but you think this a winning issue for Democrats?
MYERS: I do think it's a winning issue for Democrats. I mean...
KARL: Who knew? Contraception is the central issue of the Democratic campaign.
MYERS: Exactly. And it's not just contraception. It's somehow the Republicans being on the "Mad Men" side of the argument, I mean, taking it back, you know, 50 years to a time when that wasn't necessarily the case. And I think that, if you doubt that, if you look at what happened over the last week, where there's been a lot of energy around this issue, and on Thursday we saw the House Oversight Committee, with a panel of all men, talking about contraception and what its role should be. And there was a -- you know, a furious reaction by women. All the women's groups are raising a ton of money on this. And now groups like Emily's List are actually on the air with an ad, reminding people that this is the perspective of a lot of people in the GOP and it is not going to work well for them.
TAPPER: Lou, you disagree?
DOBBS: I do disagree. First of all, I hadn't heard that -- that -- if you want to call it a joke, since I was in junior high school. It hasn't improved with age.
(LAUGHTER)
The fact is, would this render a movie? Would it give that an R rating if that joke were included in it? Is there anything that was said by Foster Friess that is worse than anything that our children will see in primetime television in this country? Why are -- where have we -- I mean, we're sort of an orthodoxy...
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: Lou, it's not -- it's not -- it's not the language. It's the...
DOBBS: ... that is seeking purity by identifying the vulgarity of others.
MYERS: It's not about the vulgarity. It's about the mindset.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: It's about a mindset that suggests that somehow that's an acceptable point of view. And the reason it's damaging to Santorum is not because he's accountable or responsible for everything one of his supporters says, but because it gets a little too close to what people think he actually believes.
TAPPER: Clarence?
PAGE: It's also about being out of touch. You know, Lou, you're right. If we told that joke, it wouldn't matter, because we're not running for office, but Foster Friess is in the middle of the Santorum campaign right now, and we are in a political campaign. And if he -- if he has observed any campaign for the last 30 years, he knows that this kind of a comment by a supporter can get the candidate into trouble. And I'm sure that was not his intent, but he walked right into it, like Reverend Wright.
DOBBS: Don't you think it takes a lot of hard work on the part of all of us in the national media to make that into what it has become? I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
PAGE: Like it or hate it, Democrat or Republican, this kind of comment reflects badly on the candidate in a campaign...
Why on Earth would anyone invite someone as toxic as Dobbs onto their show?
And even if he were sane, how 'bout the fact he's the host of another network's business channel??? I'm trying to imagine Fox "news" Sunday including Rachel Maddow or or Ed Shultz on THEIR "Power Panel".
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
Question:
answer:
They are there to piss liberals like you off!
...................don't take the bait.
p.s. there is nothing you can do to get other people to stop watching their show either so just ignore them like a good American should and stop caring what idiots on TV say
most people don't watch mainstream news anyway so big deal.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
..ask Jon Stewart.
A few weeks ago Lou Dobbs was a guest on The Daily Show.
I guess Pat Buchanan was unavailable (and yes, Pat Buchanan has also been Stewart's guest on The Daily Show. If memory serves, more than once).
What gets me is Stewart builds sketches around the lies, hate, hypocrisy & general bullshit of people like Dobbs, Buchanan & O'Reilly, then he invites them on his show where he proceeds to mainstream them.
When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in excess body fat & carrying a misspelled sign.
yeah, he should risk them not coming on by just crushing the ones that do. instead he takes it pretty easy on such huge comedic targets. despite his own content he maintains that both sides do it mentality. or the he's not really a bad guy act.
I didn't think the remark was vulgar, I thought it was ignorant. The guy was not capable of understanding how serious a subject he was talking about and how important birth control is to so many women and families. He apparently talks like this so often amongst his friends that he didn't realize the rest of us are not old male jokers who still think things that happen to women are fodder for jokes. Bottom line, he is an embarrassment to all men or at least he should be
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
except for the part about "all men" because that guy is not not even a real man to begin with.
He might be an embarassment to all male teenagers maybe...but not me.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
You are right, I used too broad a brush in my comment. I'm sorry.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
to know about the details about a woman's contraceptive routine, just like they don't want to know about her make-up choices. They just want to trust that she makes the "right" choices-- looks good and doesn't plop out kids unexpectedly. And most guys will gladly hand over the credit card so she can do what she needs to do; micromanaging and doing it on the cheap seldom works. Pay now, or pay for the next 18 years.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
trying to tell us what to believe, how to believe stupid statements that the right-wing spews each and everyday...notice how they have to walk back almost every statement.
Yup. ".... the gals put it between their knees..."
THE GALS??!? What are you, 120? What's next gramps, going to the 5 and Dime for an egg cream and a new pain of dungarees?
That is the most childish criteria that I have ever heard set for such a thing. It is what I would expect from the 3rd string Middle School Debate Squad in a practice .
Do those guys get paid for being on those shows?
"Do these guys get paid for being on those shows?"
I must have asked that question here a dozen times over the years and I still haven't gotten an answer.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
...world views. I'm amazed that anyone non-old, white and rich gives a fuck what these diseased relics think.
. . . that it's mutual. They feel exactly the same way about you and me, or maybe less.
Dobbs covers it up well, but he is definitely intellectually challenged.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Take a look back and remember what this racist Neanderthal said on CNN:
http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2009/11...
He's to stupid and debased even for CNN. Now that's bad.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
He looked like the fool he is on that panel. His only point was it wasn't offensive because Fries didn't use offensive language that couldn't be used on prime time. Once again it's an old outdated idiot on our TeeVee. It wasn't the language Lou, it was the mindset.
is intended to be a factual statement
C&L is getting stupid.
Keep your knees together is the "nicer" way to say keep your legs closed.
Stop reading Shakesville and Feministe.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Santorum? Seriously? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...........
Like a drunk stuffing hundreds in a shitty band's tip jar.
What's your excuse?
Stewart frequently shows a broader audience how stupid or how horrible these guys (and they're pretty much guys) are. He's not putting them on to agree with them. As for ABC's This Week I've stopped watching. I've been watching Chris Hayes on MSNBC the last couple of weeks. This Week panel too skewed. That goes for the new CBS morning show too. Gingrich and Santorum have been on that show so much that you would think they are cohosts. Oh and what's up with McCain. He's all over the place.
I thought this nasty person was banned from spreading his anti-American terrorism on our television networks. And if he isn't why isn't he? Less dangerous people are executed with due process but this guy gets to continue spewing his anti-American hate? WTF
You can tell that these guys really, really do not get it when they "misunderstand" what's offensive about this ~joke and about Billo's racist comments about the restaurant. They lack any kind of perspective at all. When Foster Friess got as far as "gals", I knew he was going off the rails. With Newt sighing wistfully over the good old days of workhouses, and is it New Hampshire where they wanted to revive and enforce the Magna Carta? -- these guys really are looking to reimpose the good old days where women and people of color knew their place.
immature and very very very stupid.
It is the type of "male" humor at the expense of women that was quite common when I was growing up.
Men thought it was tres drole, très intelligent, and très viril, to make jest of the difficulties women had to keep from becoming pregnant in a society where they were expected to be subservient, acquiescent, to always say yes to the mâle supérieur. But were at the same time expected to say no and to stay life long virgins while being baby producing factories.
Growing up in the 50's and 60's I was just on the cusp of the era where pregnant women were not supposed to appear in public because being pregnant meant they had done something dirty. Being a mother was a badge of honor but being pregnant was shameful. (Resonates of today's Republican's position of women's woman stuff don't it?)
Friess is a prime example of a stupid childish man who managed to make a lot of money.
And he is an unfeeling shallow minded sexist also, too.
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