Wes Vernon
Thursday, Jan. 25, 2001

First families have traditionally been lampooned by shows such as "Saturday Night Live," and the public has generally gone along with a few laughs in an "It’s all in fun" shrug of the shoulders.

But now, Americans are letting Comedy Central know that the producers of a show tentatively named "That’s My Bush" are stepping way over the line.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker, producers of such scatological (as described by World magazine) works as "South Park," are planning a series that features the first family in its living quarters away from the West Wing.

According to casting notes obtained by the New York Post, the plan is to portray the Bush twins as hot lesbian lovers. This has been confirmed in an audition script posted on the Web. Oral sex is another theme included in the plans.

Stone has openly boasted that the show will be "barely legal."

Now that a public outcry has erupted, the producers, according to a follow-up New York Post story this week, are showing signs of getting "cold feet."

The president and his wife, Laura, have been pleading for privacy for Jenna and Barbara. And a Comedy Central spokesman tells the Post it is no longer a sure thing the twins will be portrayed.

But William J. Murray, chairman of Religious Freedom Coalition, tells NewsMax.com that statement falls far short of any commitment to back off. From his group’s Washington office, he has fired off identical letters to Stephen M. Case of America Online, which just bought the channel-owning Time Warner, and John J. Rigas of Adelphia Communications, the company involved in providing the cable facilities.

Murray tells Case and Rigas that they "have the power to stop the vicious attacks on President Bush’s twin daughters planned by the perverts at Comedy Central."

"These young girls are not ‘hot lesbian lovers’ and have done nothing to deserve having their lives ruined."

Comedy Central chief, Larry Divney, was quoted as saying the network got "plenty of e-mails from the public, about 100, and 75 said leave the girls alone."

Only 100? No way, says Murray, who adds he knows for a fact that his group alone generated at least 1,000 e-mails.

The Religious Freedom Coalition chairman tells the AOL and Adelphia executives that they "can make one phone call to stop this cruelty." Just one call to Divney, he says, "will put an end to this perverted, twisted program."

The kind of material contemplated would likely prompt less protest if it were to appear "in a place where you expect to see obscenity and vulgarity, like the Playboy Channel. It should not be on a cable network that does its best to attract adolescents and children."

Murray puts no stock in Divney’s comment that he "feels it may be inappropriate to use the girls."

"[He says he] ‘feels,’ but [there is] no action to stop it," is the way the religious coalition chief assesses the remark. And producers Parker and Stone disagree even with that weasel-worded comment

NBC’s "Saturday Night Live," early in the Clinton presidency, ridiculed Chelsea for her looks, as if reaching the age of puberty in the national spotlight were not already awkward enough. Hillary Clinton reportedly hit the roof, and that was pretty much the end of that.

Besides, the entertainment industry liked the Clintons. The Bushes may receive less consideration.

Which, in a way, may be ironic. The Comedy Central producers have made statements suggesting that the target isn’t Bush, because they would have created a series on Al Gore had he been elected. Rather, the target seems to be the presidency itself.

Concludes World: "Now the [presidency] is held in derision as the inspiration for lewd jokes. And whom do we have to thank for that?"

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Media Bias

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