Santorum Backer Sorry for Birth Control 'Joke'

After making headlines yesterday by saying aspirin "between [gals'] knees" once served as birth control, Foster Friess explained his comments to Lawrence O'Donnell last night. "I love the expression, 'It’s not so much what people say, it’s what people hear,' and obviously a lot of people who are younger than 71 didn’t get the context of that joke," the leading Rick Santorum backer said. "Back in my days, they didn’t have the birth control pill, so to suggest that Bayer Aspirin could be a birth control was considered pretty ridiculous and quite funny." But on his website today, Friess went further and actually apologized, saying that even his wife "didn't like" the joke.

Last night, added that he isn't against contraception—he's just opposed to government mandates requiring religious groups to fund them, Mediaite reports. Meanwhile, over at Fox News, Greta Van Susteren asked Santorum himself about the comment, wondering whether he'd "correct" Friess. "Foster is known in political circles as telling a lot of jokes and some of them are not particularly funny. This one was not," Santorum said, adding that it was Friess' "business" and thus doesn't "reflect on the campaign." (Click to see why Daily Intel thinks Friess' "joke" is actually a good reflection of Santorum's feelings on birth control.)