One of the most widely mocked skirmishes in modern politics was the battle royale between Vice President Dan Quayle and Candace Bergan’s sitcom muckracker Murphy Brown. Qualye was concerned that Brown’s irresponsible decision to have a child out of wedlock would set a bad example and he proceeded to have a public feud with the fictional character.
Now another Republican moralist is having a spat with a pretend TV news anchor. Jason B. Whitman, the policy chair of the Young Republicans and a Breitbart columnist, responded angrily to a Tweet by Will McAvoy, the anchor of the ACN news network on HBO’s Newsroom. Unfortunately, Whitman didn’t know that McAvoy wasn’t a real person. The exchange went something like this:
McAvoy: When will the media stop talking about the politically irrelevant Sarah Palin at CPAC? I’m devoting the hour to that topic tonight!
Whitman: It’s odd that @WillMcAvot_ACN is dedicating an entire hour of his show to “politically irrelevant” @SarahPalinUSA.
Shortly thereafter, Whitman was alerted to his mistake and deleted the Tweet. That, however, did not dissuade the ersatz McAvoy from further engaging Whitman:
McAvoy: Murphy Brown and I had drinks on Sunday and could have sworn we saw Dan Quayle and @JasonBWhitman making out. Could be wrong.
This is the sad state of affairs in the world of conservatism. They are a pitifully out-of-touch congregation of ill-informed wingnuts whose grasp of popular culture consists of fan clubs for Ronald Reagan and swapping 8-tracks of Ted Nugent. No wonder their favorite news network is affiliated with 20th Century Fox, still in a century that is one behind the rest of us. Whitman’s Young Republican organization is so dynamic that they have four whole postings this year on their blog. Clearly they have their thumb on the pulse of American youth.
What is not surprising is that they would object to “lamestream” news anchor Will McAvoy. He prominently put the Tea Party in its place in an early episode of the program. The monologue enumerated some of the identifying characteristics of today’s Tea-publican Party. Coincidentally, the GOP just went public with the results of their “rebranding” study and McAvoy’s list would fill in nicely as a statement of their principles.
While Quayle’s suggestion was stupid – who cares if well-financed women want to become single mothers? – fictional characters are still role models, and hence, effect change in society when they get lots of airplay.
Absolutely! I know all my role models are fictional: Darth Vader, Lex Luthor, Don Corleone, the character Marlon Brando played in The Missouri Breaks”, and Donald Rumsfeld.
Wait a minute. Did Jason Whitman just say that Sarah “The Stupid” Palin is “politically irrelevant”?! Wow, he should have had his mouth washed out with poisoned tea served by Ted Nugent… 🙂
“When will the media stop talking about the politically irrelevant Sarah Palin at CPAC? I’m devoting the hour to that topic tonight!”
Irony is wasted on rightwingers.
I never understood the whole role model thing. It’s such a cop out. It seems to be a way to deflect responsibility for one’s actions, or for parents or authority figures to distract from/rationalize their own incompetence. It’s not very surprising that you hear it most from the religious right.
Parents are role models, too. Role models need not be real, nor not real, since in essence, they are images in our heads, not real things.