Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, May 18, 1992, just as the George H.W. Bush re-election campaign is starting to

heat up, Vice President Van Quayle tossed a family values grenade into the middle of the room.

Quayle was giving a speech, the speech was actually on May 19th,

ford its worth.

He's giving a speech on May 19th in San Francisco,

and he spent a large part of that speech talking about the LA riots

that had raged a few weeks earlier in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict.

His diagnosis of the root cause of the riots was a quote poverty mindset in the black community

he talked about family values in the black community but then towards the end of the

speech he made an interesting connection talking about the overall erosion of

family values as he saw in the United States he said quote 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. He was referring to the very

popular TV show Murphy Brown, Murphy Brown played by Candice Bergen, that just the

night before had aired in an episode that 38 million people watched.

In that episode, Brown indeed became a single mother.

This caused an enormous firestorm. So here to discuss Dan Quayle versus Murphy Brown and lots more are as always

Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello

Jody.

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