GED Test Prep - Social Studies

Answer: A - Vice President Dan Quayle gave a speech during the 1992 presidential campaign in which he derided the namesake character of Murphy Brown for becoming a single mother. Quayle, who was running for re-election with President George H.W. Bush, criticized Brown for, in his view, attempting to diminish the role of fathers. The speech was given during the program's summer hiatus, compelling a national debate on single motherhood for almost four months before the show returned to air. Murphy Brown's season première in the fall of 1992 dealt with the speech as an event in its own fictional world, as though Quayle had attacked a real person. Brown responded in kind, making a statement on the show's fictional news program FYI about the dignity of the non-traditional family. Quayle's blunder became one of the defining moments of the 1992 campaign, which he and President Bush ultimately lost.