Quote of the Day: Foster Friess's Preferred Contraceptive Technique

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The Santorum backer has a simple method for preventing pregnancies, and it doesn't involve rhythm.

Rick Santorum sugar daddy and multimillionaire investor Foster Friess has some birth-control advice for all you ladies out there:

Back in my days they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly.

We'll wait while you stop laughing at his hilarious joke. See, the way it works is that then women have to keep their legs closed .... OK, you've got it. Good. (This is apparently an old joke, sometimes made with other objects, including silver dollars, standing in for aspirin.)

Friess is a born-again Christian and a staunch social conservative, which is one reason why he supports Santorum and has put his considerable financial muscle behind the former Pennsylvania senator. Still, the comment is perplexing. Not only was it enough to leave Andrea Mitchell -- an experienced pro -- temporarily dumbfounded, it's a clear distraction from the point he was trying to make, which is that American politics should focus on matters other than contraception, such as unemployment and Islamist terror. Instead, this will guarantee that everyone talks about birds, bees, and Bayer for a while longer.

For the record, aspirin is not an effective means of birth control.

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David A. Graham

David Graham is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Politics Channel. He previously reported for Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The National.

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