That was way back in 1992. Brought to the political debate by the GOP “family values” standard bearer Dan Quayle:
“It doesn’t help matters when primetime 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.'”
Forget for the moment that Murphy Brown was a fictional character. Forget that the character was a mature single women. And forget that her fling wasn’t with a married man. The GOP chose to wag its moral finger at a sitcom as emblematic for everything that ailed this country in 1992.
In the real world in 1978 – that’s fourteen years before 1992 – the office of the Sen Ted Stevens, another one of those “family values” Republicans, employed a single pregnant woman. One who today said:
“I raised my son, Adam Paul, as a single parent,” Michelle Laxalt said in her statement, …
As she is listed as having been employed by one of her daddy’s colleagues from 1975 to 1980, she would have had all her maternity medical care paid for by the US taxpayer. She moved on to positions in the Reagan administration. Then in 1984 opened her very own lobbying shop. How many corporate clients were only too happy to throw some lucre at a women with close ties to three senators? Or was it the other way round with the Senators lobbying their big-money and corporate sponsors to hire the woman?
Along the way, according to Politico
Michelle D. Laxalt is recognized as one of the most prominent and effective government relations practitioners in the nation’s capital. In fact, “Washingtonian” magazine named her one of the top 50 lobbyists in a town where lobbying has become a major industry. She was the first Republican woman to form her own consulting firm in Washington, D.C.
“Fact?” Raw Story reports that Ms. Laxalt was named as one of the top fifty lobbyists in 1993 and 1998, but cites “Politico” as the source. Perhaps a real journalist out there can confirm this. (There’s more silliness in her “Politico” bio – Such as “Ms. Laxalt had a long and distinguished career in government, serving in several key positions in both the executive and legislative branches.” When did at most three years become “long and distinguished?” And “Ms. Laxalt has extensive experience in the legislative branch as well, having served in key positions in the offices of Senators Ted Stevens, John Warner, Jake Garn and James Buckley. ” Multiple “key positions” for four senators for a woman that chronologically would have been the age of most DC interns?) “The Washingtonian” did not include Ms. Laxalt in its 2007 list. However, that’s around the time she began to pop up occasionally on cable TV news as a Republican consultant. And in 2010 she was listed as one of BP’s lobbyists. (Only fair to mention that BP employed a huge roster of Republican and Democratic lobbyists.)
DC is such a nest of incestuous influence peddling that Ms. Laxalt could be a high profile lobbyist without drawing public attention to herself. Even when she lobbied for Phillip Morris in S. Korea. Even when single and pregnant and later a single mother.
Not that the rube “family values” GOP voters would mind that Ms. Laxalt once (twice, thrice?) fucked Sen. Domenici anymore than they minded Ms. Palin’s unwed teen mother daughter. Not that they would mind if Domenici, Laxalt, Stevens, etc. secured a steady stream of lobbying “work” for her. They are, after all, merely political partisans sans any principles.
What is extremely tiresome is all the GOP fake outrage over anything or anyone not in lockstep with their fake values, political affiliation, and worship of war and the dollar. All the freaking public discourse occupied in 1992 by Dan Quayle’s war against a fictitious character. The year of so that they consumed over the impeachment of Clinton for his peccadillo. GWB’s fake WMD. Benghazi. The deficit they didn’t give a shit about under Reagan/Bush/Bush. Enough already!
And: