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Mr. Freeze

By on February 17, 2012

The first of 15 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rick Santorum’s billionaire bank-roller Foster Friess (That’s really his name, I know it sounds like an ice cream drive-in) got his 15 minutes of fame this week from repeating a very old locker room joke about women putting pills between their knees as a contraceptive.

The joke first heard is not all that funny even in the locker room and it sounds downright pathetic on national television. David Letterman faces no competition here. Neither does Milton Berle if he were still alive. If this is a sample of Foster’s joke book, it is not likely to get him invited to speak at the local Raccoon Lodge Annual Weeny Roast. Judge for yourself :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMVzaIMYuTYMr.

Many people expressed outrage, predictably women. Anti-Santorum folks jumped on it gleefully. It played through the evening on MSNBC and CNN and into the next day. Santorum of course rushed to his money man’s defense, trying to dismiss the incident as nothing much.  Perhaps, but well-indulged loose lips have consequences. And so it is here, though not in a way anyone is talking about.

Turns out Mr. Drive-through-Ice-Cream-Parlor is a Wisconsin-born rancher and investment mogul who manages the Brandywine Fund, one of the largest funds in the US. He started from scratch and build his fortune slowly into the billions. Congratulations to him. He is a born-again Evangelical Christian, philanthropist, and co-contributor to causes promoted by the infamous Koch Brothers, living counterparts to the Duke Brothers in the popular movie Trading Places. The Kochs had their 15 minutes of fame thanks to a trick phone call placed to embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, whom Friess also backs.

Santorum says his friend  Foster is known to his friends as a fun-loving, jolly fountain of jokes. So be it. However the real prophylaxis being effected here is likely against a GOP victory in November.

At a time when the GOP is touting wildly successful businessmen as the right people to occupy the White House and run the government, they keep  putting forward characters like Romney, Herman Cain, the Koch Brothers and Foster Friess who don’t seem like anyone most Americans would want any nearer the White House than a tour. Clueless plutocrats who hire smart people to make them money for them do not necessarily have the interests of the rest of the country at heart. Nor do they necessarily have the big picture. The US is not a giant hedge fund.

Mr. Friess in his fifteen minutes did not come across as a man with great ideas for the nation on his mind. He came across as just what he is. Did we learn nothing in the eight years that George W Bush drove the nation into a ditch economically and started two avoidable wars? Can our collective memory be that short?

This is not necessarily an endorsement of Obama but rather a plea for better choices. We’ve already got Dairy Queen. Who needs a Foster Freeze in the nation, courtesy of Mr. Santorum? 

About Tom Godfrey

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