Add former NPR talk show host and current NPR commentator Juan Williams to the list of those in the news media now seeing the light about Dan Quayle's 1992 speech about how the out-of-wedlock birth on the Murphy Brown sit-com set a bad example.
During the roundtable portion of the May 12 Fox News Sunday, host Tony Snow played a clip of Quayle's now famous soundbite from May of 1992: “It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.”
Snow recalled: “That prompted a tidal wave of response.” Citing a quote which was highlighted in Friday's CyberAlert, Snow relayed: “One indicative response from Eleanor Clift: 'There they go again, only this time instead of Willie Horton, the GOP is making Murphy Brown the symbol of what's wrong with liberal elites.'”
As highlighted in the May 10 CyberAlert, on the May 9 Today show Katie Couric suggested: “As the debate subsided and Murphy Brown took on the challenges of single-parenting some people began to wonder if Dan Quayle was right.” For details: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020510.asp#4
For quotes of journalists mocking Quayle in 1992: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020510.asp#5
On the May 12 Fox News Sunday, Williams, who was a Washington Post reporter at the time of Quayle's observation, acknowledged: “Credit where credit is due. He spoke the truth, and especially in terms of the black family, in terms of the high rate of children born to single-parent, female-headed households is a real tragedy and something that, on a serious level—you can make fun of Dan Quayle, but let's not make fun of the reality that he was trying to deal with and what he was trying to say. It's much like what Pat Moynihan did back in the late '60s. You speak about essential problems in terms of family life and in terms of minority family life in this country, you expose yourself to people who will criticize you. But you know what? That's the truth.”
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
