Why Mitt Romney Can't Fire Big Bird

October 5, 2012 11:05 PM

" Wednesday’s presidential debate may be best remembered for Mitt Romney’s promise to fire a giant yellow puppet.

“I’m sorry Jim,” Romney told moderator Jim Lehrer, who hosts the NewsHour on PBS. “I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m gonna stop other things. I like PBS, I like Big Bird, I actually like you too.”

It wasn’t the first time a Republican has promised to defund Sesame Street. In 1995, newly-elected House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for eliminating funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and privatizing PBS.

However, the hearings on cutting PBS’s budget were held before the House Appropriations Education Subcommittee, chaired by then-Rep. John Porter, whose North Shore district has one of the highest concentration of public television viewers in the nation. (There’s a joke that WTTW stands for “Wilmette Talks To Winnetka.”)

Even then, conservative media critic L. Brent Bozell brought up Big Bird. "

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