As the culture wars of the ’80s raged into the ’90s, every politician and political spouse had a favorite punching bag. Tipper Gore and the PMRC notoriously went after everyone from Prince to the Dead Kennedys, and Dan Quayle was always ragging on poor Murphy Brown. Barbara Bush’s punching bag of choice in that era was The Simpsons, which she called “the dumbest thing” she had ever seen. Never one to take an insult to her family lightly, Marge Simpson composed a response to Bush in the fall of 1990, writing, “Heaven knows we’re far from perfect and, if truth be known, just a wee bit short of normal; but as Dr. Seuss says, ‘a person is a person'” and quipping, “Ma’am, if we’re the dumbest thing you ever saw, Washington must be a good deal different than what they teach me at the current events group at the church.” Twenty-one years later, we’d like to point out that, while Bush’s husband turned out to be a one-term president, The Simpsons is still on the air. See Marge’s original letter after the jump.
[via Letters of Note]