The latest brouhaha on Capitol Hill:
House Democrats made their case for continuing taxpayer funding of public media outlets such as NPR and PBS with a little help from Arthur the PBS cartoon character, who visited the Capitol Wednesday morning.
The friendly but silent aardvark joined Democratic Reps. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and others to hit back against Republicans who have pledged to cut the funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the next budget.
“We need your help today,” Markey said as a person dressed as the character walked toward the Capitol building. “We can’t leave Arthur and all of his pals in the lurch.”
One might wonder why Arthur couldn’t make up the shortfall from corporate sponsors like Chuck E. Cheese, or Juicy Juice, or McDonald’s, or CVS.
You scoff. Except that all four are already corporate sponsors of the “Arthur” program.