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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sr K who wrote (488820)	5/27/2012 11:14:50 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	5 Recommendations Respond to of 794243

Just like today it was Hollywood trying to lead "public opinion" in the leftward direction. The whole show turned into a big mud-fest where they tried to protray themselves as "superior liberals" vs. evil Republicans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Brown Murphy becomes a single mother In the show's 1991–1992 season, Murphy became pregnant. When her baby's father (ex-husband and current underground radical Jake Lowenstein) expressed his unwillingness to give up his own lifestyle to be a parent, Murphy chose to have the child and raise it alone. Another major fiction-reality blending came at Murphy's baby shower: the invited guests were journalists Katie Couric, Joan Lunden, Paula Zahn, Mary Alice Williams and Faith Daniels, who treated the fictional Murphy and Corky as friends and peers. At the point where she was about to give birth, she had stated that "several people do not want me to have the baby. Pat Robertson; Phyllis Schlafly; half of Utah!" Right after giving birth to her son, Avery, Murphy sang the song " (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin. This storyline made the show a subject of political controversy during the 1992 American presidential campaign. On May 19, 1992, then Vice President Dan Quayle spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. During his speech, [5] he criticized the Murphy Brown character for "ignoring the importance of fathers by birthing a child alone". [6] [7] [8] [9] Quayle's remarks caused a public discussion on family values, culminating in the 1992–93 season premiere, "You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato", where the television characters reacted to Quayle's comments and produced a special episode of FYI showcasing and celebrating the diversity of the modern American family. Because Quayle's actual speech made little reference to Murphy Brown's fictional nature (other than the use of the word character), the show was able to use actual footage from his speech to make it appear that, within the fictional world of the show, Quayle was referring to Murphy Brown personally, rather than to the fictional character. At the end, Brown helps organize a special edition of FYI focusing on different kinds of families then arranges a retaliatory prank in which a truckload of potatoes is dumped in front of Quayle's residence, while a disc jockey commenting on the incident notes the Vice President should be glad people were not making fun of him for misspelling "fertilizer", (On June 15, 1992, at a spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey, Quayle had erroneously corrected an elementary school student's spelling of "potato" to "potatoe".) When Candice Bergen won another Emmy that year, she thanked Dan Quayle. The feud was cited by E! as #81 on its list of "101 Reasons the '90s Ruled." [10] However, political commentator and cultural critic Mark Steyn observed that the producers didn't seem to have a clue what to do with her son Avery commenting, "In the five years since little Avery's birth ushered in the Clinton era, Murphy Brown has been on CBS every week, Dan Quayle has been back in Indiana (and Arizona). But Avery? As soon as he was born, Muphy made another 'lifestyle choice': she stuck him at the back of the closet under the Emmy Awards and the commendations from single-parent outreach groups and mouldering editorials hailing the show for its courage, and the poor kid hasn't been seen since." [11] In 2002, Bergen said in an interview that she personally agreed with much of Quayle's speech, calling it "a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable" and adding that "nobody agreed with that more than I did." [12] Quayle would eventually display a sense of humor about the incident—after the controversy died down, he appeared for an interview on an independent Los Angeles TV station and for his final question was asked what his favorite TV show was. He responded with "Murphy Brown—Not!" The station would later use the clip of Quayle's response to promote its showing of Murphy Brown re-runs in syndication.