While it's apparently beyond the pale for Democrats unaffiliated with the Obama campaign to point out the fact that Ann Romney has never worked outside the home, it also seems perfectly fine for announced Romney backers to go on Fox News and say this:
"There’s a lot of things that haven’t been hammered at because Rick and Mitt have been kind of going at each other,” Friess told Fox Business News’ Lou Dobbs on Wednesday. “Now that they’ve kind of trained their barrels on President Obama I’m afraid his, I hope his teleprompters are bulletproof.”
Friess, an erstwhile Santorum fluffer, has now committed his billions to fund Romney's SuperPacs. Even Lou Dobbs, no stranger to pathological Obama hatred, seemed taken aback by this comment.
I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that,” the wealthy Santorum donor said, chuckling with what appeared to be embarrassment.
“No, you should not have said it,” Dobbs immediately responded before clarifying his guest’s comments. “We understand it’s a metaphor.”
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Metaphor? Really? If Friess only meant this as metaphor, he wouldn't have said he "hoped" Obama's teleprompters were bulletproof. Because he is an avowed Romney backer, if he was speaking metaphorically he would have said the opposite--that he hoped Obama's teleprompter would be anything but bulletproof, and that the Romney "message" would handily dispatch him. If Friess was being metaphorical, he botched the job. It's more likely he was just chomping at the bit to put the words "bulletproof" and "teleprompter" in the same sentence with reference to this President.
The teleprompter device is used by Presidents and Presidential candidates as an aid to give lengthy speeches to large audiences.
Here is Mitt Romney, for example, using one:
The device includes a screen, described as a with an electronic visual text of a speech or script. Using a teleprompter is similar to the practice of using cue cards. The screen is in front of and usually below the camera lens of a professional video camera, and the words on the screen are reflected to the eyes of the presenter using a sheet of clear glass
As most of us have seen the teleprompter appears as a transparent "shield' or partition that viewed from an appropriate angle serves to separate the speaker from his audience. This is the context in which Friess' remark was made--he was well aware of the implications of suggesting that such a shield be "bulletproof." He wasn't making some wild west analogy about "debates" because teleprompters aren't used in debates. Nor was this an "off the cuff" comment. Few would spontaneously dream up such a usage. It was the product of a pre-conceived talking point, one that Mr. Friess was no doubt relishing as he prepared to inject it into his conversation with Mr. Dobbs.
In other words, Friess was channeling the same heedless hatred and assassination fantasies that manifested themsleves during Palin's rallies throughout the 2008 campaign, and that have now become standard fare in Republican parlance. The fact that his delivery is convivial, even joking, just illustrates how embedded this kind of language is. And this is not merely some "talking head" appearing for a bit comment on a slow news day. This is the gentleman who actually kept the entire Santorum campaign afloat and has now thrown his billions behind the presumptive Republican nominee in an effort to sway an election that will affect the lives of over 300 million people. Just imagine the media reaction if a prominent Kerry backer had made such a statement about George W. Bush in 2004. Imagine if someone had said this about Ronald Reagan. The fact is that it would never have happened.
But this has not dominated the news cycle of the last few days, has it?
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