Dan Quayle Was Right, Dammit!

In the age of Joe Biden it's hard to believe that Dan Quayle was easily the most mocked and ridiculed Vice President of all time.  Quayle's gaffs, misstatements and foibles make Joe Biden look like a Rhodes Scholar (although based on some recent Rhodes Scholars, that's no high praise).

Dan Quayle was the ill chosen Vice Presidential nominee of George H.W. Bush (the elder).  Improperly vetted and hastily chosen for all the wrong reasons, Quayle spend four torturous years bouncing from one gaffe to another.  And if Quayle didn't misspeak, the press dutifully made up stories and situations to keep Quayle looking bad.

No moment is Dan Quayle's failed Vice Presidency is more famous than his attack on the fictional television character "Murphy Brown" on May 19, 1992.  It really was not so much an attack on the Brown character as on the "Hollywood" values that put unmarried mother's on a pedestal to be praised, revered and even emulated.  His reference to the Brown Character was brief, and not even by name, but Hollywood turned on Quayle and attacked him with a ferocity never seen before or since.

The "Liberal Media" certainly joined in and, in fact, the most respected journalists actually appeared on the fictional television series AS THEMSELVES to point with pride and passion to the fictional Brown as a role model for all modern women. Among the icons who lent their strong voices and integrity to the ideal of the unmarried mother were Katie Couric, Joan Lunden, Paula Zahn, Mary Alice Williams and Faith Daniels, a veritable who's who of women in journalism.  All appeared on the series!

Feminist leaders loved the character of Murphy Brown as an example of how "a woman can have it all," a career, children and a wonderful fulfilling life without needing to be married.

And Dan Quayle the buffoon was, well, Dan Quayle the buffoon.

Fast forward twenty years and the Murphy Brown legacy (among  many other factors affecting our social fabric) can be seen in our society where many if not most children are born to single women.  In the black community the birth rate to single mothers is today nearly 80%.  As a society we made men unnecessary except for the actual act of procreation.

A friend of mine just told me just yesterday,  "Men only want one thing....  and in today's society they only have to do that one thing."

If you go back and read Dan Quayle's speech to the Commonwealth Club in 1992 he actually never mentioned Murphy Brown by name and spoke only of the need to have a father figure in a child's life to help rear, guide and financially support the child.

Dan Quayle was right.  And today we reap as a society the seeds we sewed in the sexual and feminist revolution.  Without the financial and personal time investment by the father, single mother's are stretched to the absolute limit in their effort to raise a child.  Many are simply unable to do it.


Today many children are actually left to raise themselves.  I'm guessing no one in a position of power or responsibility in our society today ever read or learned the lesson of the book "Lord of the Flies." You know that book was required reading back when I was in high school, but I digress.

Real life examples abound this week.  Most horrific was the bludgeoning murder of the 88 year old World War II hero Delbert Belton by two 16 year old children.  And the murder of the Australian baseball player Christopher Lane in Duncan, Oklahoma by three teens who were "bored" has captured International attention with Australia actually threatening a tourism boycott.

In both cases (and hundreds more each month), the murderers were children with virtually no parental supervision.  Fathers are not in the picture for any of these kids.

I'm not looking for a return to the 1950's era of "Leave it to Beaver." Feminists were right, we DON'T NEED to condemn unmarried mothers, but we do need to educate the next generation to avoid the pitfalls of the single mother fairy tale.  We now need to increase the self image and self worth of young women and the responsibility of young men.

Children need parents. Two or more parents.  Men or women.  The child can grow only with guidance, supervision and love.  Dan Quayle was right.